 The Dreamer, from Beasts and Superbeasts, by Sarky. It 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. A Daenerchamping, 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. I am not a bargain hunter, she said, but I like to go where bargains are, which showed that beneath her strength of character there flowed a gracious undercurrent of human weakness. With a view to providing herself with a male escort, Mrs. Champing had invited her youngest nephew to accompany her on the first day of the shopping expedition, throwing in the additional allurement of a cinematograph theatre and the prospect of light refreshment. As Cyprian was not yet eighteen, she hoped he might not have reached that stage in masculine development when parcel-carrying is looked on as a thing of orant. "'Meet me just outside the floral department,' she wrote to him, and don't be a moment later than eleven.' Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wandering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world with qualities unsuspected by plain folk, the eyes of a poet or a house agent. He was quietly dressed, that sartorial quietude which frequently accompanies early adolescence, and is usually attributed by novel writers to the influence of a widowed mother. His hair was brushed back in a smoothness as of a ribbon seaweed, and seemed with a narrow furrow that scarcely aimed at being a parting. His aunt particularly noted this item of his toilet when they met at the appointed rendezvous, because he was standing, waiting for her, bare-headed. "'Where is your hat?' she asked. "'I didn't bring one with me,' he replied. A dealer-chemping was slightly scandalised. "'You are not going to be what they call a nut, are you?' she inquired with some anxiety, partly with the idea that a nut would be an extravagance, which her sister's small household would scarcely be justified in incurring, partly perhaps, with the instinctive apprehension that a nut, even in its embryo stage, would refuse to carry parcels.' Cyprian looked at her, with his wondering, dreamy eyes. "'I didn't bring a hat,' he said. "'Because it is such a nuisance when one is shopping. I mean it is so awkward if one meets any one one knows, and has to take one's hat off when one's hands are full of parcels. If one hasn't got a hat, one can't take it off.' Mrs. Champion sighed with great relief. Her worst fear had been laid at rest. "'It is more orthodox to wear a hat,' she observed, and then turned her attention briskly to the business in hand. "'We will go first to the table in Encounter,' she said, leading away in that direction. "'I should like to look at some napkins.' The wondering look deepened in Cyprian's eyes as he followed his aunt. He belonged to a generation that is supposed to be over-fond of the role of mere spectator, but looking at napkins that one did not mean to buy was a pleasure beyond his comprehension. Mrs. Champion held one or two napkins up to the light, and stared fixedly at them, as though she half-expected to find some revolutionary cipher written on them in scarcely visible ink, then she suddenly broke away in the direction of the glassware department. It asked me to get her a couple of decanters, if there were any going really cheap, she explained on the way. "'And I really do want a salad-bowl. I can come back to the napkins later on.' She handled and scrutinised a large number of decanters, and a long series of salad-bowls, and finally bought seven chrysanthemum vases. "'No one uses that kind of vase nowadays,' she informed Cyprian, "'but they will do for presents next Christmas.' Two sunshades that were marked down to a price that Mrs. Champion considered absurdly cheap were added to her purchases. "'One of them will do for Ruth Coulson. She is going out to the Malay States, and a sunshade will always be useful there, and I must get her some thin writing-paper. It takes up no room in one's baggage.' Mrs. Champion bought stacks of writing-paper. It was so cheap, and it went so flat in a chunk, or portmanteau. She also bought a few envelopes—envelopes. Somehow seemed rather an extravagance compared with notepaper. "'Do you think Ruth will like blue or grey-paper?' she asked Cyprian. "'Grey,' said Cyprian, who had never met the lady in question. "'Have you any mauve notepaper of this quality?' Adela asked the assistant. "'We haven't any mauve,' said the assistant, but we have two shades of green and a darker shade of grey.' Mrs. Champion inspected the greens and the darker grey, and chose the blue. "'Now we can have some lunch,' she said." Cyprian behaved in an exemplary fashion in the refreshment department, and cheerfully accepted a fish-cake and a mince-pie and a small cup of coffee as adequate restoratives after two hours of concentrated shopping. He was adamant, however, in resisting his aunt's suggestion that a hat should be bought for him at the counter where men's headgear was being disposed of at temptingly reduced prices. "'I've got as many hats as I want at home,' he said, and besides, it rumples one's hair so trying them on.' Perhaps he was going to develop into a nut, after all. It was a disquieting symptom that he left all the parcels in charge of the cloakroom attendant. "'We shall be getting more parcels presently,' he said, so we need not collect these till we have finished our shopping.' His aunt was doubtfully appeased. Some of the pleasure and excitement of a shopping expedition seemed to evaporate when one was deprived of immediate personal contact with one's purchases. "'I'm going to look at those napkins again,' she said, as they descended the stairs to the ground floor. "'You need not come,' she added, as the dreaming look in the boy's eyes changed for a moment into one of mute protest. "'You can meet me afterwards in the cutlery department. I've just remembered that I haven't a corkscrew in the house that can be depended on.' Cyprian was not to be found in the cutlery department when his aunt in Dukos arrived there, but in the crush and bustle of anxious shoppers and busy attendants it was an easy matter to miss anyone. It was in the leather goods department some quarter of an hour later that a dealer-champing caught sight of her nephew, separated from her by a rampart of suitcases and portmanteau, hemmed in by the drosseling crush of human beings that now invaded every corner of the great shopping emporium. She was just in time to witness a pardonable but rather embarrassing mistake on the part of a lady who had wriggled her way with unstable determination towards the bareheaded Cyprian, and was now breathlessly demanding the sale price of a handbag which had taken her fancy. "'There now!' exclaimed a dealer to herself. She takes him for one of the shop assistants because he hasn't got her hat on. I wonder it hasn't happened before.' Perhaps it had. Cyprian, at any rate, seemed neither startled nor embarrassed by the error into which the good lady had fallen. Examining the ticket on the bag he announced in a clear dispassionate voice. Black seal, thirty-four shillings, marked down to twenty-eight. As a matter of fact we are clearing them out at a special reduction price of twenty-six shillings. But they are going off rather fast. "'I'll take it!' said the lady, eagerly digging some coins out of her purse. "'Will you take it as it is?' asked Cyprian. "'It will be a matter of a few minutes to get it wrapped up. There is such a crush. "'Never mind. I'll take it as it is,' said the purchaser, clutching her treasure and counting the money into Cyprian's palm.' Several kind strangers helped a dealer into the open air. "'It's the crush and the heat,' said one sympathiser to another. "'It's enough to turn any one giddy.' When she next came across Cyprian he was standing in the crowd that pushed and jostled around the counters of the book department. The dream look was deeper than ever in his eyes. He had just sold two books of devotion to an elderly cannon. End of The Dreamer The Quince Tree From Beasts and Superbeasts by Sarkie This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Quince Tree by Sarkie I've just been to see old Betsy Mullin, announced Vera to her aunt, Mrs. Beverly 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. Betsy Mullin always is in difficulties with her rent, and the more people help her with it, the less she troubles about it, said the aunt. I certainly am not going to assist her any more. The fact is, she will have to go into a smaller and cheaper cottage. There are several to be had at the other end of the village, for half the rent that she's paying or supposed to be paying now. I told her a year ago that she ought to move. But she wouldn't get such a nice garden anywhere else, protested Vera. And there's such a jolly Quince Tree in the corner. I don't suppose there's another Quince Tree in the whole parish, and she never makes any Quince Jam. I think to have a Quince Tree and not to make Quince Jam shows such strength of character. Oh, she can't possibly move away from that garden. When one is sixteen, said Mrs. Weberly-Cumble severely, one talks of things being impossible which are merely uncongenial. It is not only possible, but it is desirable, that Betsy Mullin should move into smaller quarters. She has scarcely enough furniture to fill that big cottage. As far as value goes, said Vera after a short pause, there is more in Betsy's cottage than in any other house for miles around. Nonsense, said the aunt. She parted with whatever old China where she had long ago. I'm not talking about anything that belongs to Betsy herself, said Vera darkly, but of course you don't know what I know, and I don't suppose I ought to tell you. You must tell me at once, exclaimed the aunt. Her senses leaping into alertness like those of a terrier, suddenly exchanging a bored drowsiness for the lively anticipation of an immediate rat-hunt. I'm perfectly certain that I ought not tell you anything about it, said Vera, but then I often do things I ought not to do. I should be the last person to suggest that you should do anything that you ought not to do. began Mrs. Beverly Cumbull impressively. And I am always swayed by the last person who speaks to me, admitted Vera, so I'll do what I ought not to do and tell you. Mrs. Beverly Cumbull thrust a very pardonable sense of exasperation into the background of her mind, and demanded impatiently, What is there in Betsy Mullen's cottage that you are making such a fuss about? It's hardly fair to say that I've made a fuss about it, said Vera. This is the first I've mentioned the matter. But there's been no end of trouble and mystery and newspaper speculation about it. It's rather amusing to think of the columns of conjecture in the press, and the police, and detectives hunting about everywhere at home, and abroad, and all the while that innocent-looking little cottage has held the secret. You don't mean to say it's that louvre of picture, lap, something or other, the woman with the smile that disappeared about two years ago? exclaimed the aunt with rising excitement. Oh, no, not that, said Vera, but something quite as important and just as mysterious, if anything, rather more scandalous. Not the Dublin Vera nodded. The whole jolly lot of them. In Betsy's cottage? Incredible! Of course, Betsy hasn't an idea as to what they are, said Vera. She just knows that there's something valuable and that she must keep quiet about them. I found out quite by accident what they were and how they came to be there. You see, the people who had them were at their wit's end to know where to stow them away for safekeeping, and someone who was motoring through the village was struck by the snug loneliness of the cottage and thought it would be just the thing. Mrs. Lamper arranged the matter with Betsy and smuggled the things in. Mrs. Lamper? Yes, she does a lot of district visiting, you know. I am quite aware that she takes soup and flannel and improving literature to the poorer cottages, said Mrs. Beverly Cumble. But that is hardly the same sort of thing as disposing of stolen goods, and she must have known something about their history. Anyone who reads the papers, even casually, must have been aware of the theft, and I should think the things were not hard to recognise. Mrs. Lamper has always had the reputation of being a very conscientious woman. Of course, she was screening someone else, said Vera. A remarkable feature of the affair is the extraordinary number of quite respectable people who have involved themselves in its meshes by trying to shield others. You would be really astonished if you knew some of the names of the individuals mixed up in it, and I don't suppose a tithe of them knew who the original culprits were, and now I've got you entangled in the mess by letting you into the secret of the cottage. You most certainly have not entangled me, said Mrs. Beverly Cumble indignantly. I have no intention of shielding anybody. The police must know about it at once. A theft is a theft whoever is involved. If respectable people choose to turn themselves into receivers and disposers of stolen goods, well, they've ceased to be respectable, that's all. I shall telephone immediately. Oh, aren't, said Vera reproachfully. It would break the poor cannon's heart if Cuthbert were to be involved in a scandal of this sort. You know it would. Cuthbert involved? How can you say such things when you know how much we all think of him? Of course I know you think a lot of him, and that he's engaged to Mary Beatrice, and that it will be a frightfully good match, and that he's your ideal of what a son-in-law ought to be. All the same it was Cuthbert's idea to stow the things away in the cottage, and it was his motor that bought them. He was only doing it to help his friend Peginson, you know, the Quaker man who's always agitating for a smaller navy. I forgot how he got involved in it. I warned you that there were lots of quite respectable people mixed up in it, didn't I? That's what I meant when I said it would be impossible for old Betsy to leave the cottage. The things take up a good deal of room, and she couldn't go carrying them about with other goods and chattels without attracting notice. Of course if she were to fall ill and die it would be equally unfortunate. Her mother lived to be over ninety, she tells me, so with due care and an absence of worry she ought to last for another dozen years at least. By that time perhaps some other arrangements will have been made for disposing of the wretched things. I shall speak to Cuthbert about it, after the wedding," said Mrs. Beverly Cumble. The wedding isn't till next year," said Vera, in recounting the story to her best girlfriend, and meanwhile old Betsy is living rent-free with soup twice a week, and my aunt's doctor to see her whenever she has a finger-egg. But how on earth did you get to know about it all, asked her friend, in admiring wonder? It was a mystery, said Vera. Of course it was a mystery, a mystery that baffled everybody. What beats me is how you found out. Oh, about the jewels! I invented that part," explained Vera. I mean the mystery was where old Betsy's arrears of rent were to come from, and she would have hated leaving that jolly quince-tree. End of The Quince Tree. The Forbidden Buzzards From Beasts and Superbeasts by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Forbidden Buzzards by Sarky 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 for 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. I suppose you're thinking of the Coltonette girl. She's certainly jolly, and quite all right as far as looks go, and I believe a certain amount of money adheres to her. What I don't see is how you will ever manage to propose to her. In all the time I've known her, I don't remember her to have stopped talking for three consecutive minutes. You'll have to race her six times round the grass-paddock for a bet, and then blurt your proposal out before she's got her wind back. The paddock is laid up for hay, but if you're really in love with her, you won't let a consideration of that sort stop you, especially as it's not your hay. I think I could manage the proposing part right enough, said Hugo. If I could count on being left alone with her for four or five hours. The trouble is that I'm not likely to get anything like that amount of grace. That fellow laner is showing signs of interesting himself in the same quarter. He is quite heart-breakingly rich, and is rather a swell in his way. In fact, our hostess is obviously a bit flattered at having him here. If she gets wind of the fact that he's inclined to be attracted by Betty Coltonette, she'll think it a splendid match, and throw them into each other's arms all day long, and then where will my opportunities come in? My one anxiety is to keep him out of the girl's way as much as possible, and if you could help me. And if you want me to trot laner round the countryside, inspecting alleged Roman remains, and studying local methods of bee culture and crop-raising, I'm afraid I can't apply to you, said Clovis. You see, he's taken something like an aversion to me since the other night in the smoking-room. What happened in the smoking-room? He trotted out some well-worn chestnut as the latest thing in good stories, and I remarked quite innocently that I could never remember whether it was George II or James II, who was so fond of that particular story, and now he regards me with politely draped dislike. I'll do my best for you if the opportunity arises, but it will have to be in a roundabout, impersonal manner. It's so nice having Mr. Laner here, confided Mrs. Olston to Clovis the next afternoon. He's always been engaged when I've asked him before. Such a nice man! He really ought to be married to some nice girl. Between you and me, I have an idea that he came down here for a certain reason. I've had much the same idea, said Clovis, luring his voice. In fact, I'm almost certain of it. You mean he's attracted by—began Mrs. Olston eagerly. I mean he's here for what he can get, said Clovis. For what he can get? said the hostess with a tone of indignation in her voice. What do you mean? He's a fairly rich man. What should he want to get here? He has one ruling passion, said Clovis, and there's something he can get here that is not to be had for love nor money anywhere else in the country as far as I know. But what? Whatever do you mean? What is his ruling passion? Egg collecting, said Clovis. He has agents all over the world getting rare eggs for him, and his collection is one of the finest in Europe, but his great ambition is to collect his treasures personally. He stops at no expense nor trouble to achieve that end. God heavens! The buzzards! The rough-legged buzzards! exclaimed Mrs. Olston. You don't think he's going to raid their nest? What do you think yourself? asked Clovis. The only pair of rough-legged buzzards, known to breed in this country, are nesting in your woods. Very few people know about them. But as a member of the League for Protecting Rare Birds, that information would be at his disposal. I came down in the train with him, and I noticed that a bulky volume of dresser's birds of Europe was one of the requisites that he had packed in his travelling kit. It was the volume dealing with short-winged hawks and buzzards. Clovis believed that if a lie was worth telling, it was worth telling well. That is appalling! said Mrs. Olston. My husband would never forgive me if anything happened to those birds. They've been seen about the woods for the last year or two, but this is the first time they've nested, as you say. They're almost the only pair known to be breeding in the whole of Great Britain, and now their nest is going to be harried by guests staying under my roof. I must do something to stop it. Do you think if I appealed to him?" Clovis laughed. There is a story going about, which I fancy is true in most of its details, of something that happened not long ago, somewhere on the coast of the Sea of Marmara, in which our friend had a hand. A Syrian nightjar, or some such bird, was known to be breeding in the olive gardens of a rich Armenian, who for some reason or other wouldn't allow Lana to go in and take the eggs, though he offered cash down for the permission. The Armenian was found beaten near to death, and they were too later, and his fences levelled. It was assumed to be a case of Muslim aggression, and noted as such in all the consular reports, but the eggs are in the Lana collection. No, I don't think I should appeal to his better feelings, if I were you. I must do something, said Mrs. Olston tearfully. My husband's parting words, when he went off to Norway, were an injunction to see that those birds were not disturbed. He's asked about them every time he's written. Do suggest something? I was going to suggest picketing, said Clovis. Picketing? You mean setting guards round the birds? No. Round Lana. He can't find his way through those woods by night, and you could arrange that either you, or Evelyn, or Jack, or the German governess, should be by his side in relays all day long. A fellow guest he could get rid of, but he couldn't very well shake off members of the household, and even the most determined collector would hardly go climbing after forbidden buzzards eggs, with the German governess hanging round his neck, so as to speak. Lana, who had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecuting his courtship of the Kulteneb girl, found presently that his chances of getting her to himself for ten minutes, even, were non-existent. If the girl was ever alone, he never was. His hostess had changed suddenly, as far as he was concerned, from the desirable type that lets her guests do nothing in the way that best pleases them, to the sort that drags them over the ground like so many harrows. She showed him the herb garden, and the greenhouses, the village church, some watercolour sketches that her sister had done in Corsica, and the place where it was hoped that celery would grow later in the year. He was shown all the Aylesbury ducklings and the row of wooden hives where there would have been bees if there had not been bee disease. He was also taken to the end of a long lane, shown a distant mound, whereon local tradition reported that the Danes had once pitched a camp. And when his hostess had to desert him temporarily for other duties, he would find Evelyn walking solemnly by his side. Evelyn was fourteen, and talked chiefly about good and evil, and of how much one might accomplish in the way of regenerating the world if one was thoroughly determined to do one's utmost. It was generally rather a relief when she was displaced by Jack, who was nine years old, and talked exclusively about the Balkan War, without throwing any fresh light on its political or military history. The German governess told Lana more about Shiller than he had ever heard in his life about any one person. It was perhaps his own fault for having told her that he was not interested in Goethe. When the governess went off picket duty, the hostess was again on hand, with a not-begain said invitation to visit the cottage of an old woman who remembered Charles James Fox. The woman had been dead for two or three years, but the cottage was still there. Lana was called back to town earlier than he had originally intended. Hugo did not bring off his affair with Betty Coltonneb. Whether she refused him or whether, as was more generally supposed, he did not get a chance of saying three consecutive words, has never been exactly as attained anyhow. She is still the jolly Coltonneb girl. The buzzards successfully reared two young ones, which were shot by a local hairdresser. End of The Forbidden Buzzards. The Stake From Beasts and Superbeasts by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Stake by Sarky Ronny is a great trial to me, said Mrs. Atre, plentifully. Only eighteen years old, last February, and already a confirmed gambler. I'm 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 Strapence a hundred. And even that I shouldn't do, if it wasn't that Edith always wants a forth, and would be certain to ask that detestable jenkinum woman if she couldn't get me. I would much rather sit and talk any day than play bridge. Cards are such a waste of time, I think. But as to Ronny, Bridge, and Baccarat, and poker patients are positively all he thinks about. Of course I've done my best to stop it. I've asked the Noridrums not to let him play cards when he's over there. But you might as well ask the Atlantic Ocean to keep quiet for a crossing as to expect them to bother about a mother's natural anxieties. Why do you let him go there? asked Eleanor Saxelby. My dear, said Mrs. Atre, I don't want to offend them. After all, they are my landlords, and I have to look to them for anything I want done about the place, and they were very accommodating about the new roof for the orchid house, and they lend me one of their cars when mine is out of order. You know how often it gets out of order. I don't know how often, said Eleanor, but it must happen very frequently. Whenever I want you to take me anywhere in your car, I'm always told that there's something wrong with it, or else that the chauffeur has New Relger, and you don't like to ask him to go out. He suffers quite a lot from New Relger, said Mrs. Atre hastily. Anyhow, she continued, you can understand that I don't want to offend the Noridrums. Their household is the most rackety one in the county, and I believe no one even knows to an hour or two when any particular meal will appear on the table, or what it will consist of when it does appear. Eleanor Saxelby shuddered. She liked her meals to be of regular occurrence, and assured proportions. Still, pursued Mrs. Atre, whatever their home life may be, as landlords and neighbours they are considerate and obliging, so I don't want to quarrel with them. Besides, if Ronny didn't play cards there he'd be playing somewhere else. Not if you were firm with him, said Eleanor. I believe in being firm. Firm? I am firm, exclaimed Mrs. Atre. I am more than firm. I am far-seeing. I've done everything I could think of to prevent Ronny from playing for money. I've stopped his allowance for the rest of the year, so he can't even gamble on credit, and I've subscribed a lump sum to the church offertory in his name, instead of giving him instalments of small silver to put in the bag on Sundays. I wouldn't even let him have the money to tip the hunt's servants with, but sent it by postal order. He was furiously sulk-y about it, but I reminded him of what happened to the ten shillings that I gave him for the young men's endeavour-league self-denial week. What did happen to it? asked Eleanor. Well, Ronny did some preliminary endeavouring with it, on his own account, in connection with the Grand National. If it had come off, as he expressed it, he would have given the league twenty-five shillings, and netted a comfortable commission for himself, as it was, that ten shillings was one of the things the league had to deny itself. Since then I've been careful not to let him have a penny-piece in his hands. He'll get round that in some way, said Eleanor, with quiet conviction. He'll sell things. My dear, he's done all that is to be done in that direction already. He's got rid of his wrist-watch, and his hunting-flask, both his cigarette-cases, and I shouldn't be surprised if he's wearing imitation gold sleeve-links, instead of those his Aunt Rhoda gave him on his seventeenth birthday. He can't sell his clothes, of course, except his winter overcoat, and I've locked that up in the camp for cupboard on the pretext of preserving it from moth. I really don't see what else he can raise money on. I consider that I've been both firm and far-seeing. Has he been at the Noridrums lately? asked Eleanor. He was there yesterday afternoon, and stayed to dinner, said Mrs. Atre. I don't quite know when he came home, but I fancy it was late. Then, depend on it, he was gambling, said Eleanor, with the assured air of one who has few ideas and makes the most of them. Late hours in the country always mean gambling. He can't gamble if he has no money and no chance of getting any, argued Mrs. Atre. Even if one plays for small stakes, one must have a decent prospect of paying one's losses. He may have sold some of the Amherst pheasant chicks, suggested Eleanor. They would fetch about ten or twelve shillings each, I daresay. Ronny wouldn't do such a thing, said Mrs. Atre. In any how, I went and counted them this morning, and they're all there. No, she continued, with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a sense of painstaking and meditative achievement. I fancy that Ronny had to contend himself with the role of onlooker last night, as far as the card table was concerned. Is that clock right? asked Eleanor, whose eyes have been straying restlessly toward the mantelpiece for some little time. Lunch is usually so punctual in your establishment. Three minutes past the half-hour, exclaimed Mrs. Atre. Cook must be preparing something unusually sumptuous in your honour. I'm not in the secret. I've been out all morning, you know. Eleanor smiled, forgivingly. A special effort by Mrs. Atre's cook was worth waiting a few minutes for. As a matter of fact, the lunch and fare, when it made its tardy appearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which the justly treasured cook built up for herself. The soup alone would have sufficed to cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, and it was not redeemed by anything that followed. Eleanor said little, but when she spoke there was a hint of tears in her voice that was far more eloquent than outspoken denunciation would have been, and even the insouciant Ronald showed traces of depression when he tasted the Ronin's Salticoff. Not quite the best luncheon I've enjoyed in your house, said Eleanor at last, when her final hope had flickered out with the savoury. My dear, it's the worst meal I've sat down to for years, said her hostess. That last dish tasted principally of red pepper and wet toast. I'm awfully sorry. Is anything the matter in the kitchen, Pelin? she asked of the attendant made. Well, ma'am, the new cook hadn't hardly time to see things properly coming in, Sassadin, commenced Pelin by the way of explanation. The new cook! screamed Mrs. Atre. Colonel Noridrum's cook, ma'am, said Pelin. What on earth do you mean? What is Colonel Noridrum's cook doing in my kitchen? And where is my cook? Perhaps I can explain better than Pelin can, said Ronald hurrelly. The fact is I was dining at the Noridrum's yesterday, and they were wishing they had a swell cook like yours just for today and tomorrow, while they've got some gourmet staying with them. Their own cook's no earthly good. Well, you've seen what she turns out when she's all flurried. So I thought it would be rather sporting to play them at backerat for the loan of our cook against a money stake, and I lost, that's all. I have had rotten luck at backerat all this year. The remainder of his explanation of how he had assured the cooks that the temporary transfer had been his mother's sanction, and had smuggled the one out and the other in during the maternal absence was drowned in the outcry of scandalised up raiding. If I'd sold the woman into slavery there couldn't have been a bigger fuss about it, he confided afterwards to Bertie Noridrum, and Eleanor Saxel be raged and ramped the louder of the two. I'll tell you what, I'll bet you two of the Amherst pheasants to five shillings that she refuses to have me as a partner at the croquet tournament. We're drawn together, you know. At this time, he won his bet. End of The Stake Clovis on Parental Responsibilities From Beasts and Superbeasts by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Clovis on Parental Responsibilities by Sarky Marian Egilby 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 Egilby, depicted in the glowing improbable colours of parent Impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm. Mrs. Egilby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm enough for two. You would like, Eric, she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully. Clovis had intimated very unmistakably that he was unlikely to care extravagantly for either Amy or Willie. Yes, I feel sure you would like Eric. Everyone takes to him at once. You know, he always reminds me of that famous picture of the youthful David. I forget who it's by, but it's very well known. That would be sufficient to set me against him, if I saw much of him, said Clovis. Just imagine an auction bridge, for instance, when one was trying to concentrate one's mind on what one's partner's original declaration had been, and to remember what suits one's opponents had originally discarded, what it would be like to have someone persistently reminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simply maddening. If Eric did that, I should detest him. Eric doesn't play bridge, said Mrs. Eggleby, with dignity. Doesn't he, said Clovis? Why not? None of my children have been brought up to play card games, said Mrs. Eggleby, draughts and helmet, and those sorts of games I encourage. Eric is considered quite a wonderful draughts-player. You are screwing dreadful risks in the path of your family, said Clovis. A friend of mine, who is a prison chaplain, told me that among the worst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned to death or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a single bridge-player. On the other hand, he knew at least two expert draughts-players among them. I really don't see what my boys have got to do with the criminal classes, said Mrs. Eggleby, resentfully. They have been most carefully brought up. I can assure you that. That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out, said Clovis. Now my mother never bothered about bringing me up. She just saw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals, and was taught the difference between right and wrong. There is some difference, you know, but I have forgotten what it is. Forgotten the difference between right and wrong? exclaimed Mrs. Eggleby. Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of other subjects at the same time, and one can't remember everything, can one? I used to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and the ordinary kind, and whether the Rhineck arrives at our shores earlier than the Cuckoo or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes in growing to maturity. I dare say you knew all those sorts of things once, but I bet you have forgotten them. Those things are not important, said Mrs. Eggleby, but the fact that we have both forgotten them proves that they ARE important, said Clovis. You must have noticed that it is always the important things that one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick in one's memory. There's my cousin, Edith a clubberly, for instance. I can never forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October. It's a matter of utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whether she was born at all. Either fact seems to me absolutely trivial or unnecessary. I have heaps of other cousins to go on with. On the other hand, when I am staying with Hildegard shrubbly, I can never remember the important circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviable reputation on the turf or the stock exchange, and that uncertainty rules sport and finance out of the conversation at once. No one can never mention travel, either, because her second husband had to live permanently abroad. Mrs. shrubbly and I move in very different circles, said Mrs. Eggleby stiffly. No one who knows Hildegard could possibly accuse her of moving in a circle, said Clovis. Her view of life seems to be a non-stop run with an inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get someone else to pay for the petrol, so much the better, I don't mind confessing to you that she has taught me more than any other woman I can think of. What kind of knowledge, demanded Mrs. Eggleby with the air a jury might collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box? Well, among other things, she's introduced me to at least four different ways of cooking lobster, said Clovis gratefully. That, of course, wouldn't appeal to you. People who abstain from the pleasures of the card-table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of the dining-table. I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment get atrophied from disuse. An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster, said Mrs. Eggleby. I dare say, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she'd often been ill before eating the lobster. Aren't you concealing the fact that she'd had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria and the other things aunts do we have long before she ate the lobster? Aunts that have never known a day's illness are very rare. In fact, I don't personally know of any. Of course, if she ate it as a child of two weeks old, it might have been her first illness, and her last, but if that was the case, I think you should have said so. I must be going, said Mrs. Eggleby, in a tone which had been thoroughly sterilized of even perfunctory regret. Clovis rose with an air of graceful reluctance. I have so enjoyed our little talk about Eric, he said. I quite look forward to meeting him some day. Goodbye, said Mrs. Eggleby frostily. The supplementary remark which she made at the back of her throat was, I'll take care that you never shall. End of Clovis on Parental Responsibilities. A Holiday Task From Beasts and Superbeasts, by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Holiday Task By Sarky Ken Elmer Jerton entered the dining-hall of the Golden Gallion Hotel in the full crush of the lunch-narr. Nearly every seat was occupied, and small additional tables had been brought in, where floor-space permitted, to accommodate late-comers, 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 discernable, and took his seat with the uncomfortable and wholly groundless idea that everyone in the room was staring at him. He was a youngish man of ordinary appearance, quite a dress and unobtrusive of manner, and he could never wholly rid himself of the idea that a fierce light of public scrutiny beat on him, as though he had been a notability, or a super-nut. After he had ordered his lunch there came the unavoidable interval of waiting, with nothing to do but stare at the flower-vars on his table and to be stared at, in imagination, by several flappers, some mature beings of the same sex, and a satirical-looking Jew. In order to carry off the situation with some appearance of unconcern, he became spuriously interested in the contents of the flower-vars. What's the name of those roses? You know, he asked the waiter. The waiter was ready at all times to conceal his ignorance concerning items of the wine-list or menu. He was frankly ignorant as to the specific name of the roses. Amy Sylvester Partington said a voice at Jerton's elbow. The voice came from a pleasant-faced, well-dressed young woman who was sitting at a table that almost touched Jerton's. He thanked her hurriedly and nervously for the information, and made some inconsequent remark about the flowers. It's a curious thing, said the young woman, that I should be able to tell you the name of those roses without any effort of memory, because if you were to ask me my name I should be utterly unable to give it to you. Jerton had not harboured the least intention of extending his thirst for name-labels to his neighbour. After her rather remarkable announcement, however, he was obliged to say something in the way of polite inquiry. Yes, answered the lady, I suppose it is a case of partial loss of memory. I was in the train, coming down here. My ticket told me that I had come from Victoria and was bound for this place. I had a couple of five-pound notes and a sovereign on me, no visiting cards or any other means of identification, and no idea as to who I am. I can only hazily recollect that I have a title, I am Lady Somebody. Beyond that, my mind is a blank. Hadn't you any luggage with you? asked Jerton. That's what I didn't know. I knew the name of this hotel, and made up my mind to come here, and when the hotel porter who meets the trains asked if I had any luggage, I had to invent a dressing-bag and dress-basket. I could always pretend that they'd gone astray. I gave him the name of Smith, and presently he emerged from a confused pile of luggage and passengers with a dressing-bag and dress-basket, labelled Kestrel Smith. I had to take them. I don't see what else I could have done. Jerton said nothing, but he rather wondered what the lawful owner of the baggage would do. Of course it was dreadful arriving at a strange hotel with the name of Kestrel Smith, but it would have been worse to have arrived without luggage. Anyhow, I hate causing trouble. Jerton had visions of harassed railway officials and distraught Kestrel Smith's, but he made no attempt to clothe his mental picture in words. The lady continued her story. Naturally, none of my keys would fit the things, but I told an intelligent page-boy that I'd lost my key-ring, and he had the locks forced in a twinkling. Rather to intelligent that boy, he'll probably end up in Dartmoor. The Kestrel Smith's toilet-tools aren't up to much, but they are better than nothing. If you feel sure that you have titles, said Jerton, why not get hold of a peerage and go right through it? I tried that. I skimmed through the House of Lords in Whitaker, but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little to one, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your identity, you might pour over the army list for months, without one finding out who you were. I'm going on another tag. I'm trying to find out by various little tests who I am not. That will narrow the range of uncertainty down a bit. You may have noticed, for instance, that I am lunching principally off Lobster Newberg. Jerton had not ventured to notice anything of the sort. It's an extravagance, because it's one of the most expensive dishes on the menu, but at any rate, it proves that I'm not Lady Starping. She never touches shellfish, and poor Lady Bradeltrap has no digestion at all. If I am her, I shall certainly die in agony in the course of the afternoon, and the duty of finding out who I am will devolve on the press and the police and those sort of people. I shall be past caring. Lady Newford doesn't know one rose from another, and she hates men, so she wouldn't have spoken to you in any case, and Lady Mouse Hilton flirts with every man she meets. I haven't flirted with you, have I? Jerton hastily gave the required assurance. Well, you see, continued the Lady, that knocks four off the list at once. It'll be rather a lengthy process bringing the list down to one, said Jerton. Oh! but of course there are heaps of them that I couldn't possibly be. Women who've got grandchildren, or sons old enough to have celebrated their coming of age, I've only got to consider the ones about my own age. I tell you how you might help me this afternoon, if you don't mind. Go through any of the back numbers of country life and those sort of papers you can find in the smoking room, and see if you'll come across my portrait with infant son, or anything of that sort. It won't take you ten minutes. I'll meet you in the lounge about tea time. Thanks awfully! And the fair unknown, having graciously pressed Jerton into the search for her lost identity, rose and left the room. As she passed the young man's table, she halted for a moment and whispered, Did you notice I tipped the waiter a shilling? We can cross Lady Alwight off the list. She'd have died rather than do that. At five o'clock, Jerton made his way to the hotel lounge. He had spent a diligent but fruitless quarter of an hour among the illustrated weeklies in the smoking room. His new acquaintance was seated at a small tea table with a waiter hovering in attendance. China tea or Indian? she asked as Jerton came up. China, please, and nothing to eat. Have you discovered anything? The only negative information. I'm not Lady Bethnal. She disapproves dreadfully at any form of gambling, so when I recognised a well-known bookmaker in the hotel lobby, I went to put a tenor on an unnamed filly by William III out of Mitserovia for the three-fifteen race. I suppose the fact of the animal being nameless was what attracted me. Did it win? asked Jerton. No, came in forth. The most irritating thing a horse can do when you've backed it win or place. Anyhow, I know now that I'm not Lady Bethnal. It seems to me that the knowledge was rather dearly bought, commented Jerton. Well, yes, it has rather cleared me out, admitted the identity seeker. A Florence about all I've got left on me. The Lobster Newberg made my lunch rather an expensive one, and of course I had to tip that boy for what he did to the Kestrel Smith locks. I've got rather a useful idea, though. I feel certain that I belong to the Pivot Club. I'll go back to town and ask the whole porter there if there are any letters for me. He knows all the members by sight, and if there are any letters or telephone messages waiting for me, of course that will solve the problem. And if he says there aren't any, I shall say you know who I am, don't you? So I'll find out anyway. The plan seemed a sound one. A difficulty in its execution suggested itself to Jerton. Of course, said the lady when he hinted at the obstacle. There's my fare back to town, and my bill here and cabs and things. If you lend me three pounds, they're ought to see me through comfortably. Thanks ever so. Nothing is the question of that luggage. I don't want to be saddled with that for the rest of my life. I'll have it brought down to the hall, and you can pretend to mind guard over it while I'm writing a letter. Then I shall just slip away to the station who will wander off the smoking-room, and they can do what they like with the things. They'll advertise them after a bit, and the owner can claim them. Jerton acquiesced in the manoeuvre, and a duly mounted guard over the luggage, while its temporary owner slipped unobtrusively out of the hotel. Her departure was not, however, altogether unnoticed. Two gentlemen was strolling past Jerton, and one of them remarked to the other. Did you see that tall young woman in grey who went out just now? She's the lady. His promenade carried him out of earshot at the critical moment when he was about to disclose the elusive identity. The lady who? Jerton could scarcely run after a total stranger, break into his conversation, and ask him for information concerning a chance passed by. Besides, it was desirable that he should keep up the appearance of looking after the luggage. In a minute or two, however, the important personage to the man who knew came strolling back alone. Jerton summoned up all his courage, and waylaid him. I think I heard you say you knew the lady who went out of the hotel a few minutes ago, a tall lady dressed in grey. Excuse me for asking if you could tell me her name. I've been talking to her for half an hour. She knows all my people and seems to know me, so I suppose I've met her somewhere, but I'm blessed if I can put a name to her. Could you? Oh, certainly. She's a Mrs. Stroop. Mrs? queried Jerton. Yes, she's the lady champion at golf in my part of the world, an awful good sort. Goes about a good deal in society, but she has an awkward habit of losing her memory every now and then and gets into all sorts of fixes. She's furious, too, if you make any allusion to it afterwards. Good day, sir. The stranger passed on his way, and before Jerton had time to assimilate his information, he found his whole attention centred upon an angry-looking lady who was making loud and fretful seeming inquiries of the hotel clerks. Has any luggage been brought here from the station by mistake, a dress, basket, and a dressing-case with the name Kestrel Smith? It can't be traced anywhere. I saw it put in at Victoria, that I'll swear. But there's my luggage, and the locks have been tampered with. Jerton heard no more. He fled down to the Turkish bath and stayed there for hours. End of a holiday task. The Staldox from Beasts and Superbeasts by Saki This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Staldox by Saki Thierphil Echley was an artist by profession, a cattle-painter by force of environment. It is not to be supposed that he lived on a ranch 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. On one side of his garden there abutted a small picturesque meadow, in which an enterprising neighbour pastured some small picturesque cows of the Channel Island persuasion. At noonday in summer time the cows stood knee-deep in tall meadow-grass under the shade of a group of walnut trees, with the sunlight falling in dappled patches on their most sleek coats. Echley had conceived and executed a dainty picture of two reposeful milch cows in the setting of a walnut tree and meadow-grass and filtered sunbeam, and the Royal Academy had duly exposed the same on the walls of its summer exhibition. The Royal Academy encourages orderly, methodical habits in its children. Echley had painted a successful and acceptable picture of cattle-drowsing picturesque under walnut trees, and as he had begun so of necessity he went on. His noontide piece, a study of two done cows under a walnut tree, was followed by a midday sanctuary, a study of a walnut tree, with two done cows under it. In due succession there came where the gadflies cease from troubling, the haven of the herd, and a dream in dairy-land, studies of walnut trees and done cows. His two attempts to break away from his own tradition were signal failures. Turtledoves alarmed by sparrow-hawk, and wolves on the Roman campania came back to his studio in the guise of abominable heresies, and Echley climbed back into grace and the public gaze with a shaded nook where drowsy milkers dream. On a fine afternoon in late autumn he was putting some finishing touches to a study of meadow-weeds, when his neighbour, Adela Pingsford, assailed the outer door of his studio with loud, peremptory knockings. There is an ox in my garden, she announced, in explanation of the tempestuous intrusion. An ox? said Echley blankly and rather fatuously. What kind of ox? Oh, I don't know what kind, snapped the lady. A common or garden ox, to use the slang expression. It is the garden part of it that I object to. My garden has just been put straight for the winter, and an ox, roaming about it, won't improve matters. Besides, there are other chrysanthemums just coming into flower. How did it get into the garden? asked Echley. I imagine it came in by the gate, said the lady impatiently. It couldn't have climbed the walls, and I don't suppose any one dropped it from an aeroplane as a bovrum advertisement. The immediately important question is not how it got in, but how to get it out. Won't it go? said Echley. If it was anxious to go, said Adela Pingsford rather angrily, I should not have come here to chat with you about it. I am practically all alone. The housemaid is having her afternoon out, and the cook is lying down with a deck of neuralgia. Anything that I may have learned at school, or in afterlife, about how to remove a large ox from a small garden, seems to have escaped from my memory now. All I could think of was that you were a near neighbour, and a cattle painter, presumably more or less familiar with the subjects that you painted, and that you might be of some slight assistance. Possibly I was mistaken. I paint dairy-cows, certainly, admitted Echley. But I cannot claim to have had any experience in rounding up stray oxen. I've seen it done on a cinema film, of course, but there were always horses and lots of other accessories besides. One never knows how much of those pictures are faked. Adela Pingsford said nothing but led the way to her garden. It was normally a fair-sized garden, but it looked small, in comparison with the ox. A huge, mottled, brute, dull red about the head and shoulders, passing to dirty white on the flanks and hind-quarters, with shaggy ears and large bloodshot eyes. It bore a bite as much resemblance to the dainty, paddock heffers that Echley was accustomed to paint, as the chief of a Kurdish nomad clan would to a Japanese tea-shop girl. Echley stood very near the gate, while he studied the animal's appearance and demeanour. Adela Pingsford continued to say nothing. It's eating a chrysanthemum, said Echley at last, when the silence had become unbearable. How observant you are, said Adela bitterly, you seem to notice everything. As a matter of fact, it has got six chrysanthemums in its mouth at the present moment. The necessity for doing something was becoming imperative. Echley took a step or two in the direction of the animal, clapped his hands, and made noises of the hiss and shoe variety. If the ox heard them, it gave no outward indication of the fact. If any hens should ever stray into my garden, said Adela, I should certainly send for you to frighten them out, you shoe, beautifully. Meanwhile, do you mind trying to drive that ox away? That is a mademoiselle Louisa Bichot that he's begun on now, she added, in icy calm. As a glowing orange head was crushed into the huge munching mouth. Since you have been so frank about the variety of the chrysanthemum, said Echley, I don't mind telling you that this is an airshire ox. The icy calm broke down. Adela Pingsford used language that sent the artist instinctively a few feet nearer to the ox. He picked up a peacepstick and flung it with some determination against the animal's mottled flanks. The operation of mashing mademoiselle Louisa Bichot into a petal salad was suspended for a long moment while the ox gazed with concentrated enquiry at the stick-thrower. Adela gazed with equal concentration and more obvious hostility at the same focus. As the beast neither lowered its head nor stamped its feet, Echley ventured on another javelin exercise with another peacepstick. The ox seemed to realise at once that it was to go. It gave a hurried final pluck at the garden where the chrysanthemums had been, and strode swiftly up the garden. Echley ran to head it towards the gate, but only succeeded in quickening its pace from a walk to a lumbering trot. With an air of enquiry but no real hesitation, it crossed the tiniest rip of turf that the charitable called the croquet lawn and pushed its way through the open French window into the morning room. Some chrysanthemums and other autumn herbage stood around the room in vases, and the animal resumed its browsing operations. All the same, Echley fancied that the beginnings of a hunted look had come into its eyes, a look that counseled respect. He discontinued his attempt to interfere with its choice of surroundings. Mr. Echley said a dealer in a shaking voice, I asked you to drive that beast out of my garden, but I did not ask you to drive it into my house. If I must have it anywhere on the premises, I prefer the garden to the morning-room. Cattle-drives are not in my lying, said Echley, if I remember I told you so at the outset. I quite agree, retorted the lady. Painting pretty pictures of pretty little cows is what you're suited for. Perhaps you'd like to do a nice sketch of that ox making itself at home in my morning-room. This time it seemed as if the worm had turned. Echley began striding away. Where are you going? screamed dealer. To fetch implements, was the answer. Implements? I won't have you use a lasso, the room will be wrecked if there's a struggle. But the artist marched out of the garden. In a couple of minutes he returned laden with easel, sketching stool, and painting materials. Do you mean to say that you're going to sit quietly down and paint that brute while it's destroying my morning-room? gasped a dealer. It was your suggestion, said Echley, setting his canvas in position. I forbid it, I absolutely forbid it, stormed a dealer. When I don't see what standing you have in the matter, said the artist, you can hardly pretend it's your ox, even by adoption. You seem to forget that it's in my morning-room eating my flowers! came the raging retort. You seem to forget that the cook has new voucher, said Echley. She may be just dozing off into a merciful sleep, and your outcry will waken her. Consideration for others should be the guiding principle of people in our station of life. The man is mad! exclaimed a dealer tragically. A moment later it was a dealer herself who appeared to go mad. The ox had finished the vase-flowers and the cover of Israel-Kalish, and appeared to be thinking of leaving its rather restricted quarters. Echley noticed its restlessness, and promptly flung it some bunches of Virginia creeper leaves as an inducement to continue the sitting. I forget how the proverb runs, he observed, something about better a dinner of herbs than a stalled ox where hate is. We seem to have all the ingredients for the proverb ready to hand. I shall go to the public library and get them to telephone for the police, announced the dealer, and raging audibly as she departed. Some minutes later the ox, awakening probably to the suspicion that oil, cake, and chopped man-gold were waiting for it in some appointed bar, stepped with much precaution out of the morning-room, stared with grave inquiry at the no longer obtrusive and peacetic throwing human, and then lumbered heavily but swiftly out of the garden. Echley picked up his tools, and followed the animal's example, and Lark Dean was left to neuralgia and the cook. The episode was the turning point in Echley's artistic career. His remarkable picture, ox in a morning-room, late autumn, was one of the sensations and successes of the next Paris Salon, and when it was subsequently exhibited at Munich, it was bought by the Bavarian government, in the teeth of the spirited bidding of three meat extract firms. From that moment his success was continuous and assured, and the Royal Academy was thankful, two years later, to give a conspicuous position on its walls to his large canvas, Barbary apes wrecking a boudoir. Echley presented Adila Pingsford with a new copy of Israel Kallish, and a couple of finely flowering plants of Madame Andre Blusset, but nothing in the nature of a real reconciliation has taken place between them. END OF THE STALLED OX THE STORYTELLER FROM BEESTS AND SUPERBEESTS by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE STORYTELLER by Sarky It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly sultry, and the next stop was at Temple Coomne, 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. Both the aunt and the children were conversational in a limited, persistent way, reminding one of the attentions of a housefly that refused to be discouraged. Most of the aunt's remarks seemed to begin with, Don't! And nearly all of the children's remarks began with, Why? The bachelor said nothing, out loud. Don't, Cyril! Don't! exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy began smacking the cushions of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at each blow. Come and look out of the window, she added. The child moved reluctantly to the window. Why are those sheep being driven out of that field? he asked. I expect they're being driven to another field, where there's more grass, said the aunt, weakly. But there's lots of grass in that field, protested the boy. There's nothing else but grass there. Aunt, there's lots of grass in that field. Perhaps the grass in the other field is better, suggested the aunt, fatuously. Why is it better? came the swift, inevitable question. Oh! look at those cows! exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field along the line had contained cows or bullocks, but she spoke as though she were drawing attention to a rarity. Why is the grass in the other field better? persisted Cyril. The frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was a hard, unsympathetic man the aunt decided in her mind. She was utterly unable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other field. The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite on the road to Mandalay. She only knew the first line, but she put her limited knowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over and over again in a dreamy but resolute and very audible voice. It seemed to the bachelor as though someone had had a bet with her that she could not repeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever it was who had made the wager was likely to lose his bet. Come over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor had looked twice at her and once at the communication cord. The children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage. Evidently her reputation as a storyteller did not rank high in their estimation. In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, petulant questions from her listeners, she began an unenterprising and deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made friends with everyone on account of her goodness, and was finally saved from a mad bull by a number of rescuers who admired her moral character. Wouldn't they have saved her if she hadn't been good? demanded the bigger of the small girls. It was exactly the question that the bachelor had wanted to ask. Well, yes, admitted the aunt lamely, but I don't think they would have run quite so fast to help her if they had not liked her so much. It's the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls, with immense conviction. I didn't listen after the first bit. It was so stupid," said Cyril. The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long ago recommended a murmured repetition of her favourite line. You don't seem to be much success as a storyteller," said the bachelor suddenly from his corner. The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack. It's a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both understand and appreciate," she said stiffly. I don't agree with you," said the bachelor. Perhaps you would like to tell them a story," was the aunt's retort. Tell us a story," demanded the bigger of the small girls. Once upon a time began the bachelor. There was a little girl called Bertha, who was extraordinarily good. The children's momentarily aroused interest began at once to flicker. All stories seemed dreadfully alike, no matter who told them. She did all that she was told. She was always truthful. She kept her clothes clean, ate milk puddings, as though they were jam-tarts, learned her lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners. Was she pretty?" asked the bigger of the small girls. Not as pretty as any of you," said the bachelor. But she was horribly good. There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story. The word horrible in connection with goodness was a novelty that commended itself. It seemed to introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt's tales of infant life. She was so good," continued the bachelor, that she won several medals for goodness, which she always wore pinned onto her dress. There was a medal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for good behaviour. They were large metal medals, and they clicked against one another as she walked. No other child in the town where she lived had as many as three medals, so everyone knew that she must be an extra good child. Horribly good," quoted Cyril. Everybody talked about her goodness, and the prince of the country got to hear about it, and he said that as she was so very good she might be allowed, once a week, to walk in his park, which was just outside the town. It was a beautiful park, and no children were ever allowed in it, so it was a great honour for Bertha to be allowed to go there. Were there any sheep in the park? demanded Cyril. No, said the bachelor. There were no sheep. Why weren't there any sheep? came the inevitable question arising out of that answer. The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have been described as a grin. There were no sheep in the park, said the bachelor, because the prince's mother had once had a dream that her son would either be killed by a sheep, or else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the prince never kept a sheep in his park, or a clock in his palace. The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration. Was the prince killed by a sheep, or by a clock? asked Cyril. He's still alive, so we can't tell whether the dream will come true, said the bachelor unconcernedly. Anyway, there were no sheep in the park, but there were lots of little pigs running around all over the place. What colour were they? Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, grey with white patches, and some were white all over. The storyteller paused to let a full idea of the park's treasures sink into the children's imaginations, and then he resumed. Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park. She had promised her aunts, with tears in her eyes, that she would not pick any of the kind prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her promise. So, of course, it made her feel rather silly to find that there were no flowers to pick. Why weren't there any flowers? Because the pigs had eaten them all, said the bachelor promptly. The gardeners had told the prince that you couldn't have pigs and flowers, so he decided to have pigs and no flowers. There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the prince's decision, so many people would have decided the other way. There were lots of delightful things in the park. There were ponds with gold and blue and green fish in them, and trees with beautiful parrots that said clever things at a moment's notice, and hummingbirds that hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and down and enjoyed herself immensely and thought to herself, if I were not so extraordinarily good, I should not have been allowed to come into this beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it. And her three medals clinked against one another as she walked, and helped to remind her how very good she really was. Just then an enormous wolf came prowling into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for its supper. What colour was it? asked the children amid an immediate quickening of interest. Mud colour all over with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakable ferocity. The first thing that it saw in the park was Bertha. Her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could be seen from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf, and saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to wish that she had never been allowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and the wolf came after her with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes, and she hid herself in one of the thickest of the bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tongue lolling out of its mouth and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage. Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself, if I had not been so extraordinarily good, I should have been safe in the town at this moment. However, the scent of the myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick that he might have hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight of her, so he thought he might as well go off and catch a little pig instead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowling and sniffing so near her, and as she trembled, the meddle for obedience clinked against the meddles for good conduct and punctuality. The wolf was just moving away when he heard the sound of the meddles clinking and stopped to listen. They clinked again in a bush quite near him. He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was left of her were her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three meddles for goodness. Were any of the little pigs killed? No, they all escaped. The story began badly, said the smaller of the small girls, but it had a beautiful ending. It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard, said the bigger of the small girls with immense decision. It is the only beautiful story I have ever heard, said Cyril. A dissentient opinion came from the aunt. A most improper story to tell young children, you have undermined the effect of years of careful teaching. At any rate, said the bachelor collecting his belongings preparatory to leaving the carriage, I kept them quiet for ten minutes, which is more than you were able to do. Unhappy woman! he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of Temple Coombs Station. For the next six months or so, those children will assail her in public, with demands for an improper story. End of the Storyteller. A Defensive Diamond From Beasts and Superbeasts by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A Defensive Diamond by Sarky Treadleford sat in an easeful armchair, 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 emerging into a black, wet October evening, and the club's smoking-room seemed warmer and cosier by contrast. It was an afternoon on which to be wafted away from one's climatic surroundings, and the golden journey to Samarkand promised to bear Treadleford well and bravely into other lands and under other skies. He had already migrated from London the rain-swept to Baghdad the beautiful, and stood by the sun-gate in the olden time, when an icy breath of imminent annoyance seemed to creep between the book and himself. Ambulcope, the man with the restless prominent eyes, and the mouth ready mobilized for conversational openings, had planted himself in a neighbouring armchair. For a twelve-month and some odd weeks, Treadleford had skillfully avoided making the acquaintance of his voluble fellow-clubman. He had marvelously escaped from the inflection of his relentless record of tedious personal achievements, or alleged achievements, on golf-links, turf, and gaming-table, by flood, and field, and covert side. Now his season of immunity was coming to an end. There was no escape. In another moment he would be numbered among those who knew Ambulcope to speak to, or rather to suffer being spoken to. The intruder was armed with a copy of country life, not for purposes of reading, but as an aid to conversational ice-breaking. Rather a good portrait of throsseling, he remarked explosively, turning his large, challenging eyes on Treadleford. Somehow it reminds me very much of Yellow Step, who was supposed to be such a good thing for the Grand Prix in 1903. Curious race that was. I suppose I have seen every race for the Grand Prix for the last. Be kind enough never to mention the Grand Prix in my hearing," said Treadleford desperately. It awakens acutely distressing memories. I can't explain why without going into a long and complicated story. Oh, certainly, certainly," said Ambulcope hastily. Long and complicated stories that were not told by himself were abominable in his eyes. He turned the pages of country life and became spuriously interested in the picture of a Mongolian pheasant, not a bad representation of the Mongolian variety. He exclaimed, holding it up for his neighbour's inspection, they do very well in some covers, take some stopping, too, once they're fairly on the wing. I suppose the biggest bag I ever made in two successive days might aren't, who owns the greater part of Lincolnshire, broke in Treadleford with dramatic abruptness, possesses perhaps the most remarkable record in the way of a pheasant bag that has ever been achieved. She's seventy-five and can't hit a thing, but she always goes out with the guns. When I say she can't hit a thing, I don't mean to say that she doesn't occasionally endanger the lives of her fellow guns, because that wouldn't be true. In fact, the chief government whip won't allow ministerial MPs to go out with her. We don't want to incur by-elections needlessly, he quite reasonably observed. Well, the other day she winged a pheasant, and brought it to earth with a feather or two knocked out of it. It was a runner, my aunt saw herself in danger of being done out of a bite the only bird she'd hit during the present rain. Of course she wasn't going to stand that. She followed it through Bracken and Brushwood, and when it took to the open country and started across a plowed field, she jumped onto the shooting-pony and went after it. The chase was a long one, and when my aunt at last ran the bird to a standstill, she was nearer home than she was to the shooting-party. She'd left the hat some five miles behind her. Rather a long run for a wounded pheasant, snapped Ambulcope. The story rests on my aunt's authority, said Dreadleford Coldley, and she is local vice-president of the Young Women's Christian Association. She trotted three miles or so to her home, and it was not till the middle of the afternoon that it was discovered that the lunch for the entire shooting-party was in a pannier attached to the pony's saddle. Anyway, she got her bird. Some birds, of course, take a lot of killing, said Ambulcope. So does some fish. I remember once I was fishing in the X, lovely tripe stream, lots of fish, though they didn't run to any great size. One of them did, announced Dreadleford with great emphasis. My uncle, the Bishop of Scythe-Multon, came across a giant trout in a pool just off the main stream of the X near Ugworthy. He tried it with every kind fly and worm every day for three weeks, without an atom of success, and then fate intervened on his behalf. There was a low stone bridge just over this pool, and on the last day of his fishing holiday, a motor van ran violently into the parapet and turned completely over. No one was hurt, but part of the parapet was knocked away, and the entire load that the van was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool. In a couple of minutes, the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare mud at the bottom of a waterless pool, and my uncle was able to walk down to him and fold him to his breast. The van load consisted of blotting paper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked up into the mass of spilt cargo. There was silence to nearly half a minute in the smoking-room, and Dreadleford began to let his mind steal back towards the golden road that led to Sammercan. Ambulcope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rather tired and dispirited voice, talking of motor accidents. The narrowest squeak I ever had was the other day, motoring with old Tommy Yarby in North Wales, awfully good sort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best, it was in North Wales, said Dreadleford, that my sister met with her sensational carriage accident last year. She was on her way to a garden party at Lady Nineveh's, and by the only garden party that ever comes to pass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore a thing that she would have been very sorry to miss, she was driving a young horse that she'd only bought a week or two previously, warranted to be perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common objects of the roadside. The animal lived up to its reputation, and passed the most explosive of motorbikes with an indifference that almost amounted to apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere, and this particular cob drew it at traveling wild beast shows. Of course, my sister didn't know that. But she knew it very distinctly when she turned a sharp corner, and found herself in a mixed company of camels, pie-balled horses, and canary-coloured vans. The dog-cart was overturned in a ditch and kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country. Neither my sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to get to the Nineveh Garden Party some three miles distant seemed rather difficult to solve. Once there, of course, my sister would easily find someone to drive her home. I suppose you wouldn't care for the loan of a cup of the mar-camels, as Showman suggested in humorous sympathy. I would, said my sister, who had ridden camel-back in Egypt, and she overruled the objections of the groom, who hadn't. She picked out two of the most presentable-looking beasts, and had them dusted and made as tidy as was possible at short notice, and set out for the Nineveh Mansion. You may imagine the sensation that her small but imposing caravan created when she arrived at the hall door. The entire Garden Party flocked up to Gabe. My sister was rather glad to slip down from her camel, and the groom was thankful to scramble down from his. Then young Billy Dalton of the Dragoon Guards, who has been a lot at Aden and thinks he knows camel language backwards, thought he would show off by making the beasts kneel down in orthodox fashion. Unfortunately camel words of command are not the same all the world over. These were magnificent Turkistan camels, accustomed to stride up the stony terraces of mountain passes, and when Dalton shouted at them, they went side by side up the front steps, into the entrance hall, and up the grand staircase. The German governess met them just at the turn of the corridor. The Ninevehs nursed her with devoted attention for weeks, and when I last heard from them, she was well enough to go about her duties again. But the doctor says that she will always suffer from Harkenbeck heart. Ambulcope got up from his chair, and moved to another part of the room. Treadleford reopened his book, and Butt betook himself once more across the dragon green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea. For a blessed half-hour he disported himself in imagination by the gay Aleppo gate, and listened to the bird-voiced singing man. Then the world today called him back. A page summoned him to speak with a friend on the telephone. As Treadleford was about to pass out of the room, he encountered Ambulcope also passing out, on his way to the billiard-room, where perchance some luckless white might be secured and held fast, to listen to the number of his attendances at the Grand Prix, with subsequent remarks on Newmarket and the Cambridgeshire. Ambulcope made as if to pass out first, but a newborn pride was surging in Treadleford's breast, and he waved him back. I believe I take precedence, he said coldly. You are merely the club bore. I am the club liar. End of A Defensive Diamond The Elk From Beasts and Superbeasts by Sarky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Elk by Sarky A Theresa, Mrs. Thropelstance, was the richest and most intractable old woman in the county of Welcher. In her dealings with the world in general, her manner suggested a blend between a mysterious of the robes, and a master of foxhounds with the vocabulary of both. In her domestic circle, she comported herself in the arbitrary style that one attributes, probably without the least justification, to an American political boss in the bosom of his caucus. The late Theodore Thropelstance had left her, some thirty-five years ago, in absolute possession of a considerable fortune, a large landed property, and a gallery full of valuable pictures. In those intervening years, she had outlived her son, and quarrelled with her elder grandson, who had married without her consent or approval. Bertie Thropelstance, her younger grandson, was the heir-designate to her property, and as such he was a centre of interest and concern to some half-hundred ambitious mothers with daughters of marriageable age. Bertie was an amiable, easy-going young man, who was quite ready to marry anyone, who was favourably recommended to his notice, but he wasn't going to waste his time falling in love with anyone who would come under his grandmother's veto. The favourable recommendation would have to come from Mrs. Thropelstance. Teresa's house parties were always rounded off with a plentiful garnishing of presentable young women and alert, attendant mothers, but the old lady was emphatically discouraging when any one of her girl guests became at all likely to outbid the others as a possible granddaughter-in-law. It was the inheritance of her fortune and estate that was in question, and she was evidently disposed to exercise and enjoy her powers of selection and rejection to the utmost. Bertie's references did not greatly matter. He was of the sort who could be stolidly happy with any kind of wife. He had cheerfully put up with his grandmother all his life, so he wasn't likely to fret and fume over anything that might befall him in the way of a help made. The party that gathered under Teresa's roof in Christmas week of the year 1900-something was of smaller proportions than usual, and Mrs. Yonele, who formed one of the party, was inclined to deduce hopeful augury from this circumstance. Dora Yonele and Bertie were so obviously made for one another, she confided to the vicar's wife, and if the old lady were accustomed to seeing them about a lot together, she might adopt the view that they would make a suitable married couple. People soon get used to an idea if it is dangled constantly before their eyes, said Mrs. Yonele, hopefully, and the more often Teresa sees these young people together happy in each other's company, the more she will get to take kindly interest in Dora as a possible and desirable wife for Bertie. My dear, said the vicar's wife, resignedly, my own civil was thrown together with Bertie under the most romantic circumstances. I'll tell you about it some day, but it made no impression whatsoever on Teresa. She put her foot down in the most uncompromising fashion, and civil married an Indian civilian. Quite right of her! said Mrs. Yonele with vague approval. It's what any girl of spirit would have done. Still, that was a year or two ago, I believe. Bertie is older now, and so is Teresa. Naturally, she must be anxious to see him settled. The vicar's wife reflected that Teresa seemed to be the one person who showed no immediate anxiety to supply Bertie with a wife, but she kept the thought herself. Mrs. Yonele was a woman of resourceful energy and generalship. She involved the other members of the House Party, the dead weight, so to speak, in all manner of exercises and occupations, that segregated them from Bertie and Dora, who were left their own devisings, that is to say to Dora's devisings, and Bertie's accommodating acquiescence. Dora helped in the Christmas decorations of the parish church, and Bertie helped her to help. Together they fed the swans, till the birds went on a dyspepsia strike. Together they played billiards. Together they photographed the village arms houses, and, at a respectful distance, the tame elk that browsed in solitary aloofness in the park. It was tame in the sense that it had long ago discarded the least vestige of fear of the human race. Nothing in its record encouraged its human neighbours to feel a reciprocal confidence. Whatever sport or exercise or occupation Bertie and Dora indulged in together was unfailingly chronicled and advertised by Mrs. Yonele for the due enlightenment of Bertie's grandmother. Those two inseparables have just come in from a bicycle ride, she would announce, quite a picture they make so fresh and glowing after their spin. A picture needing words would be Theresa's private comment, and as far as Bertie was concerned she was determined that the words should remain unspoken. On the afternoon after Christmas Day, Mrs. Yonele dashed into the drawing-room, where her hostess was sitting amid a circle of guests and teacups and muffin dishes. Fate had placed what seemed like a trump card in the hands of the patiently manoeuvring mother. With eyes blazing with excitement, and a voice heavily escorted with exclamation marks, she made a dramatic announcement. Bertie has saved Dora from the elk. In swift, excited sentences broken with maternal emotion, she gave supplementary information as to how the treacherous animal had ambushed Dora as she was hunting for a strayed gulf-ball, and how Bertie had dashed to her rescue with a stable fork, and driven the beast off in the nick of time. It was touch-and-go. She threw her niblig at it, but that didn't stop it. In another moment she would have been crushed beneath its hooves. Panned it, Mrs. Yonele. The animal is not safe, said Theresa, handing her agitated guest a cup of tea. I forget if you take sugar. I suppose the solitary life at least has soured its temper. There are muffins in the grate. It's not my fault I tried to get it to mate for ever so long. You don't have anyone with a lady elk for sale or exchange, do you? She asked the company, generally. But Mrs. Yonele was in no humour to listen to talk of elk marriages. The mating of two human beings was the subject uttermost in her mind, and the opportunity for advancing her pet project was too valuable to be neglected. Theresa, she exclaimed impressively. After those two young people have been thrown together so dramatically, nothing can be quite the same between them. Bertie has done more than saved Aura's life. He has earned her affection. One cannot help feeling that fate has consecrated them for one another. Exactly what the vicar's wife said, when Bertie saved Sybil from the elk a year or two ago, observed Theresa placidly. I pointed out to her that he had rescued Mirabel Hicks from the same predicament a few months previously, and that a priority rarely belonged to the gardener's boy, who had been rescued in the January of that year. There is a good deal of sameness in country life, you know. It seems to be a very dangerous animal, said one of the guests. That is what the mother of the gardener's boy said, remarked to Theresa, and she wanted me to have it destroyed. But I pointed out to her that she had eleven children, and I had only one elk. I also gave her a black silk skirt. She said that though there hadn't been a funeral in her family, she felt as if there had been. Anyhow, we parted friends. I can't offer you a silk skirt, Emily, but you may have another cup of tea. As I have already remarked, there are muffins in the grate. Theresa closed the discussion, having deftly conveyed the impression that she considered the mother of the gardener's boy had shown a far more reasonable spirit than the parents of other elk-assaulted victims. Theresa is devoid of feeling, said Mrs. Yonah there afterwards to the vicar's wife, to sit there, talking of muffins with an appalling tragedy only narrowly averted. Of course, you know whom she really intends averted to marry, asked the vicar's wife. I've noticed it for some time. The bickle is German governess. Oh, German governess! What an idea! gasped Mrs. Yonah Lane. You know, she's a quite a good family, I believe, said the vicar's wife, and not at all the mouse in the background sort of person governess is usually supposed to be. In fact, next to Theresa, she's about the most assertive and combative personality in the neighbourhood. She pointed out to my husband all sorts of errors in his sermons, and she gave Sir Lawrence a public lecture on how he ought to handle the hounds. You know how sensitive Sir Lawrence is about any criticism of his master's ship, and to have a governess laying down the law to nearly drive him into a fit. She's behaved like that to everyone, except, of course, Theresa, and everyone has been defensively rude to her in return. The bickle is simply too afraid to get rid of her. Now, isn't that exactly the sort of woman whom Theresa would take a delight in instilling as her successor? Imagine the discomfort and awkwardness in the county if we suddenly found out that she was to be the future hostess at the hall. Theresa's only regret will be that she won't be alive to see it. But, objected Mrs. Yonalé, surely Bertie hasn't shown the least sign of being attracted in that quarter? Oh, she's quite nice-looking in a way. Dresses well, plays a good game of tennis. She often comes across the park with messages from the bickle-beam mansion, and one of these days Bertie will rescue her from the elk which has become almost a habit with him, and Theresa will say that fate has consecrated them to one another. Bertie might not be disposed to pay much attention to the consecrations of fate, but he wouldn't dream of opposing his grandfather. The vicar's wife spoke with the quiet authority of one who has intuitive knowledge, and in her heart of hearts Mrs. Yonalé believed her. Six months later the elk had to be destroyed. In a fit of exceptional mariseness it had killed the bickle-beam's German governess. It was an irony of its fate that it should achieve popularity in the last moments of its career. At any rate, it established the record of being the only living thing that had permanently thwarted Theresa Thropelstance's plans. Diana Yonalé broke off her engagement with an Indian civilian, and married Bertie three months after his grandmother's death, but Theresa did not long survive the German governess fiasco. At Christmas time, every year, young Mrs. Thropelstance hangs an extra-large festoon of evergreens on the elk horns that decorate the hall. It was a fearsome beast, she observes to Bertie, but I always feel that it was instrumental in bringing us together, which, of course, was true. End of The Elk. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Recording by Joelle Peebles. Downpens by Saki. Have you written to thank the Frapplinsons for what they sent us, asked Egbert? No, said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice. I've written eleven letters today, expressing surprise and gratitude for sundry unmerited gifts, but I haven't written to the Frapplinsons. Someone will have to write to them, said Egbert. I don't dispute the necessity, but I don't think that someone should be me, said Janetta. I wouldn't mind writing a letter of angry recrimination or heartless satire to some suitable recipient. In fact, I should rather enjoy it. But I've come to the end of my capacity for expressing servile amenability. Eleven letters today and nine yesterday, all couched in the same strain of ecstatic thankfulness. Really, you can't expect me to sit down to another. There is such a thing as writing oneself out. I've written nearly as many, said Egbert, and I've had my usual business correspondence to get through, too. Besides, I don't know what it was that the Frapplinsons sent us. A William the Conqueror calendar, said Janetta, with a quotation of one of his great thoughts for every day in the year. Impossible, said Egbert. He didn't have three hundred and sixty-five thoughts in the whole of his life, or, if he did, he kept them to himself. He was a man of action, not of introspection. Well, it was William Wordsworth then, said Janetta. I know William came into it somewhere. That sounds more probable, said Egbert. Well, let's collaborate on this letter of thanks and get it done. I'll dictate, and you can scribble it down. Dear Mrs. Frapplinson, thank you and your husband so much for the pretty calendar you sent us. It was very good of you to think of us. You can't possibly say that, said Janetta, laying her pen down. It's what I always do say, and what everyone says to me, protested Egbert. We sent them something on the twenty-second, said Janetta, so they simply had to think of us. There was no getting away from it. What did we send them? said Egbert, gloomily. Bridge markers, said Janetta, in a cardboard case, with some inanity about digging for fortune with a royal spade emblazoned on the cover. The moment I saw it in the shop, I said to myself, Frapplinsons, and to the attendant, how much? When he said nine pence, I gave him their address, jabbed our cardion, paid ten pence or eleven pence to cover the postage, and thanked heaven. With less sincerity and infinitely more trouble, they eventually thanked me. The Frapplinsons don't play bridge, said Egbert. One is not supposed to notice social deformities of that sort, said Janetta. It wouldn't be polite. Besides, what trouble did they take to find out whether we read Wordsworth with gladness? For all they knew or cared, we might be frantically embedded in the belief that all poetry begins and ends with John Macefield, and it might infuriate or depress us to have a daily sample of Wordsworthian products flung at us. Well, let's get on with the letter of thanks, said Egbert. Proceed, said Janetta. How clever of you to guess that Wordsworth is our favorite poet, dictated Egbert. Again, Janetta lay down her pen. Do you realize what that means, she asked. A Wordsworth booklet next Christmas, and another calendar the Christmas after, with the same problem of having to write suitable letters of thankfulness? No. The best thing to do is to drop all further allusion to the calendar and switch off onto some other topic. But what other topic? Oh, something like this. What do you think of the New Year Honors List? A friend of ours made such a clever remark when you read it. Then you can stick in any remark that comes into your head. It needn't be clever. The Frapplinsons won't know whether it is or isn't. We don't even know on which side they are in politics, objected, eh, Egbert. And anyhow, you can't suddenly dismiss the subject of the calendar. Surely there must be some intelligent remark that can be made about it. Well, we can't think of one, said Janetta weirly. The fact is, we've both written ourselves out. Heavens. I've just remembered Mrs. Stephen Ludbury. I haven't thanked her for what she sent. What did she send? I forget. I think it was a calendar. There was a long silence, the forlorn silence of those who are bereft of hope and have almost ceased to care. Presently, Egbert started from a seat with an air of resolution. The light of battle was in his eyes. Let me come to the writing table, he exclaimed. Gladly, said Janetta, are you going to write to Mrs. Ludbury or the Frapplinsons? To neither, said Egbert, drawing a stack of note paper towards him. I'm going to write to the editor of every enlightened and influential newspaper in the kingdom. I'm going to suggest that there should be a sort of epistolary truce of God during the festivities of Christmas and New Year. From the 24th of December to the 3rd or 4th of January, it shall be considered an offense against good sense and good feeling to write or expect any letter or communication that does not deal with the necessary events of the moment. Answers to invitations, arrangements about trains, renewal of club subscriptions, and of course, all the ordinary everyday affairs of business, sickness, engaging new cooks and so forth, these will be dealt with in the usual manner as something inevitable, a legitimate part of our daily life. But all the devastating accretions of correspondence incident to the festive season, these should be swept away to give the season a chance of being really festive, a time of untroubled, unpunctuated peace and good will. But you would have to make some acknowledgment of presents received, objective Janetta, otherwise people would never know whether they had arrived safely. Of course, I have thought of that, said Egbert. Every present that was sent off would be accompanied by a ticket bearing the date of dispatch and the signature of the sender, and some conventional hieroglyphic to show that it was intended to be a Christmas or New Year gift. There would be a counter-foil with space for the recipient's name and the date of arrival, and all you would have to do would be to sign and date the counter-foil, add a conventional hieroglyphic indicating heartfelt thanks and gratified surprise, put the thing into an envelope, and post it. It sounds delightfully simple, said Janetta Wisfully, but people would consider it too cut and dried, too perfunctory. It is not a bit more perfunctory than the present system, said Egbert. I have only the same conventional language of gratitude at my disposal, with which to thank dear old Colonel Chuddle for his perfectly delicious stilton, which we shall devour to the last morsel, and the Fraplinsons for their calendar, which we shall never look at. Colonel Chuddle knows that we are grateful for the stilton without having to be told so, and the Fraplinsons know that we are bored with their calendar, whatever we may say to the contrary, just as we know that they are bored with the bridge markers in spite of their written assurance that they thanked us for our charming little gift. What is more, the Colonel knows that even if we had taken a sudden aversion to stilton, or been forbidden it by the doctor, we should still have written a letter of hearty thanks around it, so you see the present system of acknowledgement is just as perfunctory and conventional as the counter-foil business would be, only ten times more tiresome and brain-wracking. Your plan would certainly bring the ideal of a happy Christmas a step nearer realization, said Janetta. There are exceptions, of course, said Egbert. People who really try to infuse a breath of reality into their letters of acknowledgement. Aunt Susan, for instance, who writes, Thank you very much for the ham, not such a good flavor as the one you sent last year, which itself was not a particularly good one. Hams are not what they used to be. It would be a pity to be deprived of her Christmas comments, but that loss would be swallowed up in the general gain. Meanwhile,