 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Alan Davis Drake. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short stories by Saki. Introduction by A. A. Milne. Introduction. There are good things we want to share with the world and good things which we want to keep to ourselves. The secret of our favorite restaurant to take a case is guarded jealously from all but a few intimates. The secret to take a contrary case of our infallible remedy for seasickness is thrust upon every traveler we meet. Even if he be no more than a casual acquaintance about to cross the serpentine. So with our books. There are dearly loved books of which we babble to a neighbor at dinner, insisting that she shall share our delight in them. And there are books equally dear to us, of which we say nothing. Fearing lest the praise of others should cheapen the glory of our discovery. The books of Saki were, for me at least, in the second class. It was in the Westminster Gazette that I discovered him. I like to remember now. Almost as soon as he was discoverable. Let us spare a moment and a tear. For those golden days in the early 1900s, when there were five leisurely papers of an evening which the freelance might graduate. And he could speak of his alma mater. Whether the Globe or the Palmol, with as much pride as he never doubted, the Globe or the Palmol would speak one day of him. Myself but lately down from St. James, I was not too proud to take some slight but pitting interest in men of other colleges. The unusual name of a freshman up at Westminster attracted my attention. I read what he had to say. And it was only by reciting rapidly with closed eyes the names of our own famous alumni, beginning confidently with Barry and ending now very doubtfully with myself, that I was able to preserve my equanimity. Later one heard that this undergraduate from overseas had gone up at an age more advanced than customary. And just as Cambridge men have been known to complain of the maturity of the Oxford Road Scholars, so one felt that this Westminster freelance in the 30s was no fit competitor for the youth of other colleges. Indeed it could not compete. Well, I discovered him. But only to the few the favored did I speak of him. It may have been my uncertainty, which still persists, whether he called himself Seiki, Saki or Saki, which made me thus ungenerous of his name. Or it may have been the feeling that the others were not worthy of him. But how refreshing it was when some intellectually blown up stranger said, Do you ever read Saki? To reply, with the same pronunciation, and even greater condescension. Saki? He has been my favorite author for years. A strange exotic creature this Saki, to us many others who were trying to do it too. For we were so domestic, he so terrifyingly cosmopolitan. While we were being funny, as planned, with collar studs and hot water bottles, he was being much funnier, with werewolves and tigers. Our little dialogues were between John and Mary. His, and how much better, between Bertie van Tarr and the Baroness. Even the most casual intruder into one of his sketches, as it might be our Tompkins, had to be called Belter Bay or De Ropp. And for his hero, weary man of the world at seventeen, nothing less thrilling than Clovis Sangrell would do. In our envy we may have wondered sometimes if it were not much easier to be funny with tigers than with collar studs. If Saki's careless cruelty, that strange boyish insensitiveness of his, did not give him an unfair start in the pursuit of laughter. It may have been so, but fortunately our efforts to be funny in the Saki manner have not survived to prove it. What is Saki's manner? What his magic talisman? Like every artist worth consideration, he had no recipe. If his exotic choice of subject was often his strength, it was often his weakness. If his insensitiveness carried him through at times to victory, it brought him, at times, to defeat. I do not think that he has that mastery of the Kant, in this book at least, which some have claimed for him. Such mastery infers a passion for tidiness which was not in the boyish Saki's equipment. He leaves loose ends everywhere. Nor in his dialogue, delightful as it often is, funny as it nearly always is, is he the Supreme Master. Too much does it become monologue judiciously fed, one character giving and the other taking. But in comment, in reference, in description, in every development of his story, he has a choice of words, a way of putting things which is as inevitably his own vintage as, once tasted, it becomes the private vintage of the Connoisseur. Let us take a sample or two of Saki, 1911. The earlier stages of the dinner had worn off. The wine-list had been consulted. By some, the blank embarrassment of a schoolboy suddenly called upon to locate a minor prophet in the tangled hinterland of the Old Testament. By others, with a severe scrutiny which suggests that they have visited most of the higher-priced wines in their own homes and probed their family weaknesses. Locate is the pleasant word here. Still more satisfying in the story of the man who was tattooed from collar bone to waist line with a glowing representation of the fall of Icarus. Is the word privilege? The design, when finally developed, was a slight disappointment to M. de Plis, who had suspected Icarus of being a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War. But he was more than satisfied with the execution of the work, which was acclaimed by all who had the privilege of seeing it as Pinchini's masterpiece. This story, the background, and Mrs. Packeltide's tiger, seemed to me to be the masterpieces of this book. In both of them Clovis exercises needlessly his titular right of entry. But he can be removed without damage, leaving Saki at his best and most characteristic, save that he shows here in addition to his own shining qualities a compactness and a finish which he did not always achieve. With these I introduce you to him, confident that ten minutes of his conversation, more surely than any words of mine, will have given him the freedom of your house. A. A. Milne. End of the introduction to the Chronicles of Clovis. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Saki. Esme. All hunting stories are the same, said Clovis, just as all turf stories are the same, and all— My hunting story isn't a bit like any you've ever heard, said the Baroness. It happened quite a while ago, when I was about twenty-three. I wasn't living apart from my husband then. You see neither of us could afford to make the other a separate allowance. In spite of everything the Proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up. But we always hunted with different packs. All this has nothing to do with the story. We haven't arrived at the meat yet. I suppose there was a meat, said Clovis. Of course there was a meat, said the Baroness. All the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Brodl. Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so well with autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church. I feel a presentiment that something dreadful is going to happen, she said to me. Am I looking pale? She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly heard bad news. You're looking nicer than usual, I said, but that's so easy for you." Before she had got the right bearings of this remark we had settled down to business. Hans had found a fox lying out in some gorse bushes. I knew it, said Clovis, in every fox-hunting story that I've ever heard there's been a fox and some gorse bushes. Constance and I were well mounted, continued the Baroness serenely, and we had no difficulty in keeping ourselves in the first flight, though it was a fairly stiff run. Towards the finish, however, we must have held rather too independent a line, for we lost the hounds and found ourselves plodding aimlessly along miles away from anywhere. It was fairly exasperating, and my temper was beginning to let itself go by inches, when on pushing our way through an accommodating hedge we were gladdened by the sight of hounds in full cry and a hollow just beneath us. There they go, cried Constance, and then added in a gasp, in Heaven's name what are they hunting? It was certainly no mortal fox. It stood more than twice as high, had a short ugly head, and an enormous thick neck. It's a hyena! I cried. It must have escaped from Lord Pabom's Park. At that moment the hunted beast turned and faced its pursuers, and the hounds, there were only about six couple of them, stood round in a half-circle and looked foolish. Evidently they had broken away from the rest of the pack on the trail of this alien scent, and were not quite sure how to treat their quarry now they had got him. The hyena hailed our approach with unmistakable relief and demonstrations of friendliness. It had probably been accustomed to uniform kindness from humans, while its first experience of a pack of hounds had left a bad impression. The hounds looked more than ever embarrassed as their quarry paraded its sudden intimacy with us, and the faint toot of a horn in the distance was seized on as a welcome signal for intrusive departure. Constance and I and the hyena were left alone in the gathering twilight. What are we to do? asked Constance. What a person you are for questions, I said. Well, we can't stay here all night with the hyena, she retorted. I don't know what your ideas of comfort are, I said, but I shouldn't think of staying here all night even without a hyena. My home may be an unhappy one, but at least it has hot and cold water laid on, and domestic service, and other conveniences which we shouldn't find here. We had better make for that ridge of trees to the right. I imagine the Crowley Road is just beyond. We trotted off slowly along a faintly marked cart-track with the beast following cheerfully at our heels. What on earth are we to do with the hyena? came the inevitable question. What does one generally do with hyenas? I asked Crossley. I've never had anything to do with one before, said Constance. Well, neither have I. If we even knew its sex, we might give it a name. Perhaps we might call it Esme. That would do in either case. There was still sufficient daylight for us to distinguish wayside objects, and our listless spirits gave on upward perk as we came upon a small half-naked gypsy brat picking blackberries from a low-growing bush. The sudden apparition of two horse-women and a hyena set it off crying, and in any case we should scarcely have gleaned any useful geographical information from that source. But there was a probability that we might strike a gypsy encampment somewhere along our route. We rode on, hopefully, but uneventfully, for another mile or so. I wonder what the child was doing there, said Constance presently, picking blackberries obviously. I don't like the way it cried, pursued Constance. Somehow its wail keeps ringing in my ears. I did not chide Constance for her morbid fancies. As a matter of fact the same sensation of being pursued by a persistent fretful wail had been forcing itself on my rather overtired nerves. For company's sake I hullowed to Esme who had lagged somewhat behind. With a few springy bounds he drew up level and then shot past us. The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gypsy child was firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws. "'Merciful heaven!' screamed Constance. "'What on earth shall we do? What are we to do?' I am perfectly certain that at the last judgement Constance will ask more questions than any of the examining seraphs. "'Can't we do something?' she persisted tearfully as Esme can't had easily along in front of our tired horses. Personally I was doing everything that occurred to me at the moment. I stormed and scalded and coaxed in English and French and Gamekeeper language. I made absurd, ineffectual cuts in the air with my thongless hunting-crop. I hurled my sandwich case at the brute. In fact I really don't know what more I could have done. And still we lumbered on through the deepening dusk with that dark uncouth shape lumbering ahead of us, and a drone of agubrious music floating in our ears. Suddenly Esme bounded aside into some thick bushes where we could not follow. The whale rose to a shriek, and then stopped altogether. This part of the story I always hurry over, because it is really rather horrible. When the beast joined us again after an absence of a few minutes, there was an air of patient understanding with him, as though he knew that he had done something of which we disapproved, but which he felt to be thoroughly justifiable. How can you let that ravening beast tot by your side?" asked Constance. She was looking more than ever like an albino beetroot. In the first place I can't prevent it, I said, and in the second place whatever else he may be I doubt if his ravening at the present moment. Constance shuddered. Do you think the poor little thing suffered much? came another of her futile questions. The indications were all that way, I said. On the other hand, of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children sometimes do. It was nearly pitch dark when we emerged suddenly into the high road. A flash of lights and the fur of a motor went past us at the same moment at uncomfortably close quarters. A thud and a sharp screeching yell followed a second later. The car drew up, and when I had ridden back to the spot I found a young man bending over a dark motionless mass lying by the roadside. You have killed my Esme! I exclaimed bitterly. I'm so awfully sorry," said the young man. I keep dogs myself, so I know what you must feel about it. I'll do anything I can in reparation. Please bury him at once, I said, that much I think I may ask of you. Bring the spade, William," he called to the chauffeur. Evidently hasty roadside interments were contingences that had been provided against. The digging of a sufficiently large grave took some little time. I say, what a magnificent fellow! said the motorist as the corpse was rolled over into the trench. I'm afraid he must have been rather a valuable animal. He took second in the puppy-class at Birmingham last year, I said resolutely. Constance snorted loudly. Don't cry, dear," I said brokenly. It was all over in a moment. He couldn't have suffered much. Look here," said the young fellow desperately. You simply must let me do something by way of reparation. I refused sweetly, but as he persisted I let him have my address. Of course we kept our own counsel as to the earlier episodes of the evening. Lord Pabin never advertised the loss of his hyena. When a strictly fruit-eating animal strayed from his park a year or two previously, he was called upon to give compensation in eleven cases of sheep-worrying, and practically to restock his neighbour's poultry yards, and an escaped hyena would have mounted up to something on the scale of a government grant. The gypsies were equally unobtuisive over there missing offspring. I don't suppose in large encampments they really know to a child or two how many they've got. The baroness paused reflectively, and then continued, There was a sequel to the adventure, though. I got through the post a charming little diamond brooch with the name Esme set in a sprig of rosemary. Incidentally, too, I lost the friendship of Constance Broddle. You see, when I sold the brooch, I quite properly refused to give her any share of the proceeds. I pointed out that the Esme part of the affair was my own invention, and the hyena part of it belonged to Lord Pabin. If it really was his hyena, of which, of course, I've no proof. End of Esme This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis Short Stories by Sarky The Matchmaker The grill room clock struck eleven with the respectful unobtrusiveness of one whose mission in life is to be ignored. When the flight of time should really have rendered abstinence and migration imperative, the lighting apparatus would signal the fact in the usual way. Six minutes later Clovis approached the supper-table in the blessed expectancy of one who has dined sketchily and long ago. I'm starving," he announced, making an effort to sit down gracefully and read the menu at the same time. So I gathered," said his host, from the fact that you were nearly punctual. I ought to have told you that I'm a food reformer. I've ordered two bowls of bread and milk and some health biscuits. I hope you don't mind." Clovis pretended afterwards that he didn't go white above the collarline for the fraction of a second. All the same, he said, you ought not to joke about such things. There really are such people. I've known people who've met them. To think of all the adorable things there are to eat in the world and then to go through life munching sawdust and being proud of it. They're like the flagellants of the Middle Ages who went about mortifying themselves. They had some excuse, said Clovis. They did it to save their immortal souls, didn't they? You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach, either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy, highly developed. Clovis relapsed for a few golden moments into tender intimuses with a succession of rapidly disappearing oysters. I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion, he resumed presently. They not only forgive our unkindness to them, they justify it. They incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster. Do you like my new waistcoat? I'm wearing it for the first time tonight. It looks like a great many others you've had lately, only worse. New dinner waistcoats are becoming a habit with you. They say one always pays for the excesses of one's youth. Mercifully that isn't true about one's clothes. My mother is thinking of getting married. Again? It's the first time. Of course you ought to know I was under the impression that she had been married once or twice at least. Three times, to be mathematically exact, I meant that it was the first time she had thought about getting married, the other time she did it without thinking. As a matter of fact, it's really I who am doing the thinking for her in this case. You see, it's quite two years since her last husband died. You evidently think that brevity is the soul of widowhood. Well, it struck me that she was getting moped and beginning to settle down which wouldn't suit her a bit. The first symptom that I noticed was when she began to complain that we were living beyond our income. All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays and those who aren't respectable live beyond other peoples. A few gifted individuals managed to do both. It's hardly so much a gift as an industry. The crisis came, returned Clovis, when she suddenly started the theory that late hours were bad for one and wanted me to be in by one o'clock every night. Imagine that sort of thing for me who was eighteen on my last birthday. On your last two birthdays to be mathematically exact. Oh, well, that's not my fault. I'm not going to arrive at nineteen as long as my mother remains at thirty-seven. One must have some regard for appearances. Perhaps your mother would age a little in the process of settling down. That's the last thing she'd think of. Feminine reformations always start in on the failings of other people. That's why I was so keen on the husband idea. Did you go as far as to select the gentlemen or did you merely throw out a general idea and trust of the force of suggestion? If one wants a thing done in a hurry one must see to it oneself. I found a military Johnny hanging round on a loose end at the club and took him home to lunch once or twice. He'd spent most of his life on the Indian frontier building roads and relieving famines and minimizing earthquakes and all that sort of thing that one does do on frontiers. He could talk sense to a peevish cobra in fifteen native languages and probably knew what to do if you found a rogue elephant on your croquet lawn. But he was shy and diffident with women. I told my mother privately that he was an absolute woman-hater. So of course she laid herself out to flirt all she knew, which isn't a little. And was the gentleman responsive? I hear he told someone at the club that he was looking out for a colonial job with plenty of hard work for a young friend of his, so I gather that he has some idea of marrying into the family. You seem destined to be the victim of the reformation after all. Clovis wiped the trace of Turkish coffee and the beginnings of a smile from his lips and slowly lowered his dexter eyelid, which, being interpreted, probably meant, I don't think. End of the matchmaker. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky. Tobermory. It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage and there is nothing to hunt unless one is bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemler's house party was not bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in the company of that fatigued restlessness, which means a dread of the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The undisguised open-mouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on the homely negative personality of Mr Cornelius Appin. Of all her guests he was the one who had come to Lady Blemler with the vaguest reputation. Someone had said he was clever, and he had got his invitation in the moderate expectation on the part of his hostess that some portion at least of his cleverness would be contributed to the general entertainment. Until tea-time that day she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force, nor a begetter of amateur theatricals. Neither did his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing to pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency. He had subsided into mere Mr Appin, and the Cornelius seemed a piece of transparent baptismal bluff. And now he was claiming to have launched on the world a discovery beside which the invention of gunpowder, of the printing press, and of steam locomotion were inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides in many directions during recent decades, but this thing seemed to belong to the domain of miracle rather than to scientific achievement. And do you really ask us to believe, so Wilfred was saying, that you have discovered a means for instructing animals in the art of human speech, and that dear old Tobemory has proved your first successful pupil? It is a problem at which I have worked for the last seventeen years, said Mr Appin, but only during the last eight or nine months have I been rewarded with glimmerings of success. Of course I have experimented with thousands of animals, but latterly only with cats, those wonderful creatures which have assimilated themselves so marvelously with our civilization, while retaining all their highly developed feral instincts. Here and there among cats one comes across an outstanding superior intellect, just as one does among the ruck of human beings. And when I made the acquaintance of Tobemory a week ago, I saw at once that I was in contact with a beyond-cat of extraordinary intelligence. I had gone far along the road to success in recent experiments, with Tobemory, as you call him, I have reached the goal. Mr Appin concluded his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said rats, though Clovis's lips moved in a monosyllabic contortion which probably invoked those rodents of disbelief. And do you mean to say, asked Miss Reska after a slight pause, that you have taught Tobemory to say and understand easy sentences of one syllable? My dear Miss Reska, said the wonder worker patiently, one teaches little children and savages and backward adults in that piecemeal fashion. When one has once solved the problem of making a beginning with an animal of highly developed intelligence, one has no need for those halting methods. Tobemory can speak our language with perfect correctness. This time Clovis very distinctly said, beyond rats. So Wilfred was more polite, but equally skeptical. Hadn't we better have the cat in and judge for ourselves? Suggested Lady Blemley. So Wilfred went in search of the animal, and the company settled themselves down to the languid expectation of witnessing some more or less a droid-drawing room ventriloquism. In a minute Sir Wilfred was back in the room, his face white beneath its tan, and his eyes dilated with excitement. By God, it's true! His agitation was unmistakably genuine, and his hearers started forward in a thrill of awakened interest. Collapsing into an armchair, he continued breathlessly. I found him dozing in the smoking-room, and called out to him to come for his tea. He blinked at me in his usual way, and I said, Come on, Toby, don't keep us waiting. And by God he drawled out in a most horribly natural voice that he had come when he dashed well pleased. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Appin had preached to absolutely incredulous hearers. Sir Wilfred's statement carried instant conviction. A babel-like chorus of startled exclamation arose, amid which the scientists sat mutely enjoying the first fruit of his stupendous discovery. In the midst of the clamour, Toby Maury entered the room and made his way with velvet tread and studied unconcern across to the group seated round the tea-table. A sudden hush of awkwardness and constraint fell on the company. Somehow there seemed an element of embarrassment in addressing unequal terms a domestic cat of acknowledged mental ability. Will you have some milk, Toby Maury? Asked Lady Blemley in a rather strained voice. I don't mind if I do. Was the response couched in a tone of even indifference? A shiver of suppressed excitement went through the listeners, and Lady Blemley might be excused for pouring out the saucer full of milk rather unsteadily. I'm afraid I've spilt a good deal of it, she said apologetically. After all, it's not my ex-minster," was Toby Maury's rejoinder. Another silence fell on the group, and then Miss Rusker in her best district visitor manner asked if the human language had been difficult to learn. Toby Maury looked squarely at her for a moment and then fixed his gaze serenely on the middle distance. It was obvious that boring questions lay outside his scheme of life. What do you think of human intelligence? Asked Mavis Pellington Lameley. Of whose intelligence in particular? Asked Toby Maury coldly. Oh, well, mine, for instance, said Mavis with a feeble laugh. You put me in an embarrassing position, said Toby Maury, whose tone and attitude certainly did not suggest a shred of embarrassment. When your inclusion in this house-party was suggested, Sir Wilfred protested that you were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brainpower was the precise quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy their old car. You know the one they call the envy of Sisyphus, because it goes quite nicely uphill if you push it. Lady Blemley's protestations would have had greater effect if she had not casually suggested to Mavis only that morning that the car in question would be just the thing for her down at her Devonshire home. Major Barfield plunged in heavily to effect a diversion. How about your carrying's on with the tortoise shellpulse up at the stables, eh? The moment he had said it, everyone realized the blunder. When does not usually discuss these matters in public? said Tobermore refrigerately. From the slight observation of your ways, since you've been in this house, I should imagine you would find it inconvenient if I were to shift the conversation on to your own little affairs. The panic which ensued was not confined to the Major. Would you like to go and see if Cook has got your dinner ready? Suggested Lady Blemley hurriedly, affecting to ignore the fact that it wanted at least two hours to Tobermore's dinner time. Thanks, said Tobermore, not quite so soon after my tea. I don't want to die of indigestion. Cats have nine lives, you know? said Sir Wilfred Hartley. Possibly, answered Tobermore, but only one liver. Adelaide, said Mrs. Cornet, do you mean to encourage that cat to go out and gossip about us in the servants' hall? The panic had indeed become general. A narrow ornamental balustrade ran in front of most of the bedroom windows at the towers, and it was recalled with dismay that this had formed a favorite promenade for Tobermore at all hours, once he could watch the pigeons and heaven knew what else besides. If he intended to become reminiscent in his present outspoken strain, the effect would be something more than disconcerting. Mrs. Cornet, who spent much time at her toilet table, and whose complexion was reputed to be of a nomadic, though punctual, disposition, looked as ill at ease as the Major. Miss Scrawn, who wrote fiercely sensuous poetry, and led a blameless life, merely displayed irritation. If you are methodical and virtuous in private, you don't necessarily want everyone to know it. Bertie Van Tarn, who was so depraved at seventeen that he had long ago given up trying to be any worse, turned a dull shade of gardenia white. But he did not commit the error of dashing out of the room like Odo Finsbury, a young gentleman who was understood to be reading for the church, and who was possibly disturbed at the thought of scandals he might hear concerning other people. Clovis had the presence of mind to maintain a composed exterior. Privately he was calculating how long it would take to procure a box of fancy mice through the agency of the exchange and mart as a species of hush money. Even in a delicate situation like the present, Agnes Resker could not endure to remain too long in the background. Why did I ever come down here? she asked dramatically. Tobermory immediately accepted the opening. Judging by what you said to Mrs. Cornet on the croquet lawn yesterday, you were out for food. You described the blameless as the dullest people to stay with that you knew, but said they were clever enough to employ a first-rate cook, otherwise they'd find it difficult to get any one to come down a second time. There's not a word of truth in it. I appeal to Mrs. Cornet," exclaimed the discomfited Agnes. Mrs. Cornet repeated your remark afterwards to Bertie Vantan, continued Tobermory, and said, that woman is a regular hunger-marcher. Should go anywhere for four square meals a day? And Bertie Vantan said, at this point the chronicle mercifully ceased. Tobermory had caught a glimpse of the big yellow tom from the rectory working his way through the shrubbery towards the stable wing. In a flash he had vanished through the open French window. With the disappearance of his too brilliant pupil Cornelius Appin found himself beset by a hurricane of bitter upbraiding, anxious inquiry, and frightened entreaty. The responsibility for the situation lay with him, and he must prevent matters from becoming worse. Could Tobermory impart his dangerous gift to other cats? Was the first question he had to answer. It was possible, he replied, that he might have initiated his intimate friend, the stable post, into his new accomplishment, but it was unlikely that his teaching could have taken a wider range as yet. Then, said Mrs. Cornet, Tobermory may be a valuable cat and a great pet, but I'm sure you'll agree, Adelaide, that both he and the stable cat must be done away with without delay. You don't suppose I've enjoyed the last quarter of an hour, do you? Said Lady Blemley, bitterly, my husband and I are very fond of Tobermory. At least we were before this horrible accomplishment was infused into him. But now, of course, the only thing is to have him destroyed as soon as possible. We can put some strychnine in the straps he always gets at dinner-time, said Sir Wilfred, and I will go and drown the stable cat myself. The coachman will be very sore at losing his pet, but I'll say a very catching form of mange has broken out in both cats, and we're afraid of it spreading to the kennels. But my great discovery, expostulated Mr. Appin, after all my years of research and experiment, you can go and experiment on the shorthorns at the farm who are under proper control, said Mrs. Cornit, or the elephants at the zoological gardens. They're said to be highly intelligent, and they have this recommendation, but they don't come creeping about our bedrooms and under chairs and so forth. An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the millennium, and then finding that it clashed unpardonably with Henley and would have to be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement. Public opinion, however, was against him. In fact, had the general voice been consulted on the subject, it is probable that a strong minority vote would have been in favour of including him in the strychnine diet. Defective train arrangements and a nervous desire to see matters brought to a finish prevented an immediate dispersal of the party, but dinner that evening was not a social success. Sir Wilfred had had rather a trying time with the stable cat and subsequently with the coachman. Agnes Reska ostentatiously limited her repast to a morsel of dry toast, which she bit as though it were a personal enemy, while Mavis Pellington maintained a vindictive silence throughout the meal. Lady Blemley kept up a flow of what she hoped was conversation, but her attention was fixed on the doorway. A plateful of carefully dosed fish scraps was in readiness on the sideboard, but sweets and savoury and dessert went their way, and no Tobermory appeared either in the dining room or kitchen. The sepulchral dinner was cheerful compared with the subsequent vigil in the smoking room. Eating and drinking had at least supplied a distraction and cloak to the prevailing embarrassment. Bridge was out of the question in the general tension of nerves and tempers, and after Odo Finsbury had given a lugubrious rendering of mealy sound in the wood to a frigid audience, music was tacitly avoided. At eleven the servants went to bed, announcing that the small window in the pantry had been left open as usual for Tobermory's private use. The guests read steadily through the current batch of magazines, and fell back gradually on the badminton library and bound volumes of punch. Lady Blemley made periodic visits to the pantry, returning each time with an expression of listless depression which forestalled questioning. At two o'clock Clovis broke the dominating silence. He won't turn up to-night, he's probably in the local newspaper office at the present moment, dictating the first instalment of his reminiscences. Lady Watson's book won't be in it, it will be the event of the day. Having made this contribution to the general cheerfulness, Clovis went to bed. At long intervals the various members of the house party followed his example. The servants, taking round the early tea, made a uniform announcement in reply to a uniform question. Tobermory had not returned. Breakfast was, if anything, a more unpleasant function than dinner had been, but before its conclusion the situation was relieved. Tobermory's corpse was brought in from the shrubbery where a gardener had just discovered it. From the bites on his throat and the yellow fur which coated his claws, it was evident that he had fallen in unequal combat with the big Tom from the rectory. By midday most of the guests had quitted the towers, and after lunch Lady Blemley had sufficiently recovered her spirits to write an extremely nasty letter to the rectory about the loss of her valuable pet. Tobermory had been Appin's one successful pupil, and he was destined to have no successor. A few weeks later an elephant in the Dresden zoological garden, which had shown no previous signs of irritability, broke loose and killed an Englishman who had apparently been teasing it. The victim's name was variously reported in the papers as Appin and Eppelin, but his front name was faithfully rendered Cornelius. If he was trying German irregular verbs on the poor beast, said Clovis, he deserved all he got. End of Tobermory. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarky. Mrs. Packeltide's Tiger. It was Mrs. Packeltide's pleasure and intention that she should shoot a tiger. Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended on her, or that she felt that she would leave India safer and more wholesome than she had found it, with one fraction less of wild beast per million of inhabitants. The compelling motive for her sudden deviation towards the footsteps of Nimrod was the fact that Luna Bimberton had recently been carried eleven miles in an aeroplane by an Algerian aviator and talked of nothing else. Only a personally procured tiger's skin and a heavy harvest of press photographs could successfully counter that sort of thing. Mrs. Packeltide had already arranged in her mind the lunch she would give at her house in Curson Street, ostensibly in Luna Bimberton's honour, with a tiger's skin rug occupying most of the foreground and all of the conversation. She had also already designed in her mind the tiger-claw brooch that she was going to give Luna Bimberton on her next birthday. In a world that is supposed to be chiefly swayed by hunger and by love, Mrs. Packeltide was an exception. Her movements and motives were largely governed by dislike of Luna Bimberton. Circumstances proved propitious. Mrs. Packeltide had offered a thousand rupees for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without over much risk or exertion, and it so happened that a neighbouring village could boast of being a favoured rendezvous of an animal of respectable antecedents which had been driven by the increasing infermities of age to abandon game-killing and confine its appetite to the smaller domestic animals. The prospect of earning the thousand rupees had stimulated the sporting and commercial instincts of the villagers. Children were posted night and day on the outskirts of the local jungle and had the tiger back in the unlikely event of his attempting to roam away to fresh hunting grounds, and the cheaper kinds of goats were left about with elaborate carelessness to keep him satisfied with his present quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age before the date appointed for the Memsab shoot. Mothers carrying their babies home through the jungle after the day's work in the fields hushed their singing, lest they might curtail the restful sleep of the venerable herd-robber. The great night duly arrived, moonlit and cloudless. A platform had been constructed in a comfortable and conveniently placed tree, and thereon crouched Mrs. Packeltide and her paid companion Miss Mebin. A goat, gifted with a particularly persistent bleed, such as even a partially deaf tiger might be reasonably expected to hear on a still night, was tethered at the correct distance. With an accurately sighted rifle and a thumbnail pack of patience cards, the sportswoman awaited the coming of the quarry. I suppose we are in some danger, said Miss Mebin. She was not actually nervous about the wild beast, but she had a morbid dread of performing an atom more service than she had been paid for. Nonsense, said Mrs. Packeltide. It's a very old tiger. It couldn't spring up here even if it wanted to. If it's an old tiger, I think you ought to get it cheaper. A thousand rupees is a lot of money. Louisa Mebin adopted a protective elder sister attitude towards money in general, irrespective of nationality or denomination. Her energetic intervention had saved many a ruble from dissipating itself in tips in some Moscow hotel, and Franks and Sonteams clung to her instinctively under circumstances which would have driven them headlong from less sympathetic hands. Her speculations as to the market depreciation of tiger remnants were cut short by the appearance on the scene of the animal itself. As soon as it caught sight of the tethered goat, it lay flat on the earth, seemingly less from a desire to take advantage of all available cover than for the purpose of snatching a short rest before commencing the grand attack. I believe it's ill, said Louisa Mebin loudly in Hindustani for the benefit of the village headman who was in ambush in a neighbouring tree. Hush, said Mrs. Backiltide, and at that moment the tiger commenced ambling towards his victim. Now, now! urged Mrs. Mebin with some excitement if he doesn't touch the goat we needn't pay for it. The bait was an extra. The rifle flashed out with a loud report and the great tawny beast sprang to one side and then rolled over in the stillness of death. In a moment a crowd of excited natives had swarmed onto the scene and their shouting speedily carried the glad news to the village where a thumping of tom-tons took up the chorus of triumph. And their triumph and rejoicing found a ready echo in the heart of Mrs. Backiltide already that luncheon party in Curson Street seemed immeasurably nearer. It was Louisa Mebin who drew attention to the fact that the goat was in death-throws from a mortal bullet wound while no trace of the rifle's deadly work could be found on the tiger. Evidently the wrong animal had been hit and the beast of prey had succumbed to heart failure caused by the sudden report of the rifle accelerated by senile decay. Mrs. Backiltide was pardonably annoyed at the discovery but at any rate she was the possessor of a dead tiger and the villagers anxious for their thousand rupees gladly connived at the fiction that she had shot the beast and Miss Mebin was a paid companion. Therefore did Mrs. Backiltide face the cameras with a light heart and her pictured fame reached from the pages of the Texas weekly snapshot to the illustrated Monday supplement of the Nova Verrema. As for Luna Bimberton she refused to look at an illustrated paper for weeks and her letter of thanks for the gift of a tiger claw brooch was a model of repressed emotions. The luncheon party she declined. There are limits beyond which repressed emotions become dangerous. From Curson Street the tiger skin rug travelled down to the manor house and was duly inspected and admired by the county and it seemed a fitting and appropriate thing when Mrs. Backiltide went to the county costume ball in the character of Diana. She refused to fall in however with Clovis's tempting suggestion of a primeval dance party at which everyone should wear the skins of beasts they had recently slain. I should be in rather a baby bunting condition, confessed Clovis, with a miserable rabbit skin or two to wrap up in, but then he added with a rather malicious glance at Diana's proportions. My figure is quite as good as that Russian dancing boys. How amused everyone would be if they knew what really happened, said Louisa Mebin a few days after the ball. What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Backiltide quickly. How you shot the goat and frightened the tiger to death, said Mrs. Mebin with her disagreeably pleasant laugh. No one would believe it, said Mrs. Backiltide. Her face changing colour as rapidly as though it were going through a book of patterns before post-time. Luna Bimberton would, said Mrs. Mebin. Mrs. Backiltide's face settled on an unbecoming shade of greenish white. You surely wouldn't give me away, she asked. I've seen a weekend cottage near Dawking that I should rather like to buy, said Mrs. Mebin with seeming irrelevance. Six hundred and eighty freehold. Quite a bargain, only I don't happen to have the money. Louisa Mebin's pretty weekend cottage, christened by her le fauve, and gay in summertime with its garden borders of tiger lilies, is the wonder and admiration of her friends. It's a marvel how Louisa manages to do it. It is the general verdict. Mrs. Backiltide indulges in no more big game-shooting. The incidental expenses are so heavy, she confides to inquiring friends. End of Mrs. Backiltide's Tiger. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarkie. The Stampeding of Lady Bastable. It would be rather nice if you would put Clovis up for another six days while I go up north to the McGregors, said Mrs. Sangrayle sleepily across the breakfast-table. It was her invariable plan to speak in a sleepy, comfortable voice whenever she was unusually keen about anything. It put people off their guard, and they frequently fell in with her wishes before they had realized that she was really asking for anything. Lady Bastable, however, was not so easily taken unawares. Possibly she knew that voice and what it betokened. At any rate, she knew Clovis. She frowned at a piece of toast and ate it very slowly as though she wished to convey the impression that the process hurt her more than it hurt the toast. But no extension of hospitality on Clovis's behalf rose to her lips. It would be a great convenience to me, pursued Mrs. Sangrayle, abandoning the careless tone. I particularly don't want to take him to the McGregors, and it will only be for six days. It will seem longer," said Lady Bastable dismally. The last time he stayed here for a week, I know," interrupted the other hastily, but that was nearly two years ago. He was younger then. But he hasn't improved," said her hostess. It's no use growing older if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself. Mrs. Sangrayle was unable to argue the point. Since Clovis had reached the age of seventeen she had never ceased to bewail his irrepressible waywardness to all her circle of acquaintances, although her polite scepticism would have greeted the slightest hint at a prospective reformation. She discarded the fruitless effort at cajolery and resorted to undisguised bribery. If you'll have him here for these six days I'll cancel that outstanding bridge account. It was only for forty-nine shillings, but Lady Bastable loved shillings with a great, strong love to lose money at bridge and not to have to pay it was one of those rare experiences which gave the card-table a glamour in her eyes which it could never otherwise have possessed. Mrs. Sangrayle was almost equally devoted to her card-winnings, but the prospect of conveniently warehousing her offspring for six days and incidentally saving his railway fare to the north reconciled her to the sacrifice. When Clovis made a belated appearance at the breakfast-table, the bargain had been struck. Just think, said Mrs. Sangrayle sleepily, Lady Bastable has very kindly asked you to stay on here while I go to the McGregors. Clovis said suitable things in a highly unsuitable manner and proceeded to make punitive expeditions among the breakfast-dishes with a scowl on his face that would have driven the purr out of a peace-conference. The arrangement that had been concluded behind his back was doubly distasteful to him. In the first place he particularly wanted to teach the McGregor boys, who could well afford the knowledge, how to play poker-patience. Secondly, the Bastable catering was of the kind that is classified as a rude-plenty, which Clovis translated as a plenty that gives rise to rude remarks. Watching him from behind ostentatiously sleepy lids, his mother realized, in the light of long experience, that any rejoicing over the success of her maneuver would be distinctly premature. It was one thing to fit Clovis into a convenient niche of the domestic jigsaw puzzle. It was quite another matter to get him to stay there. Lady Bastable was wont to retire in state to the morning-room immediately after breakfast and spend a quiet hour in skimming through the papers. They were there, so she might as well get their money's worth out of them. Politics did not greatly interest her, but she was obsessed with the favorite foreboding that one of these days there would be a great social upheaval in which everybody would be killed by everybody else. It will come sooner than we think," she would observe darkly. A mathematical expert of exceptionally high powers would have been puzzled to work out the approximate date from the slender and confusing groundwork which this assertion afforded. On this particular morning the sight of Lady Bastable enthroned among her papers gave Clovis the hint towards which his mind had been groping all breakfast time. His mother had gone upstairs to supervise packing operations, and he was alone on the ground floor with his hostess and the servants. The latter were the key to the situation. Bursting wildly into the kitchen-quarters Clovis screamed a frantic, though strictly noncommittal summons, poor Lady Bastable in the morning-room, oh, quick! The next moment the butler cook Page Boy two or three maids and a gardener who had happened to be in one of the outer kitchens were following in a hot scurry after Clovis as he headed back for the morning-room. Lady Bastable was roused from the world of newspaper lore by hearing a Japanese screen in the hall go down with a crash. Then the door leading from the hall flew open and her young guest torn mentally through the room shrieked at her in passing the jackery there on us and dashed like an escaping hawk out through the French window. The scared mob of servants burst in on his heels, the gardener still clutching the sickle with which he had been trimming hedges, and the impetus of their headlong haste carried them slipping and sliding over the smooth parquet flooring towards the chair where their mistress sat in panic-stricken amazement. If she had had a moment granted her for reflection, she would have behaved, as she afterwards explained, with considerable dignity. It was probably the sickle which decided her, but anyway she followed the lead that Clovis had given her through the French window and ran well and far across the lawn before the eyes of her astonished retainers. Lost dignity is not a possession which can be restored for moments' notice, and both Lady Bastable and the Butler found the process of returning to normal conditions almost as painful as a slow recovery from drowning. A jackery, even if carried out with the most respectful of intentions, cannot fail to leave some traces of embarrassment behind it. By lunchtime, however, decorum had reasserted itself with an enhanced rigor as a natural rebound from its recent overthrow, and the meal was served in a frigid stateliness that might have been framed on a Byzantine model. Halfway through its duration Mrs. Sangrayle was solemnly presented with an envelope lying on a silver salver. It contained a check for forty-nine shillings. The McGregor boys learned how to play poker-patience. After all, they could afford to. The background. That woman's art jargon tires me, said Clovis to his journalist friend. She's so fond of talking of certain pictures as growing on one as though they were a sort of fungus. That reminds me, said the journalist of the story of Henri de Plis. Have I ever told you? Clovis shook his head. Henri de Plis was by birth a native of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. On mature a reflection he became a commercial traveller. His business activities frequently took him beyond the limits of the Grand Duchy, and he was stopping in a small town of northern Italy when news reached him from home that a legacy from a distant and deceased relative had fallen to his share. It was not a large legacy even from the modest standpoint of Henri de Plis, but it impaled him towards some seemingly harmless extravagances. In particular it led him to patronise local art as represented by the tattoo needles of Signor Andreas Pincini. Signor Pincini was perhaps the most brilliant master of tattoo craft that Italy had ever known, but his circumstances were decidedly impoverished, and for the sum of six hundred francs he gladly undertook to cover his client's back from the collarbone down to the waistline with a glowing representation of the fall of Icarus. The design, when finally developed, was a slight disappointment to Monsieur Diplis, who had suspected Icarus of being a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War, but he was more than satisfied with the execution of the work which was acclaimed by all who had the privilege of seeing it as Pincini's masterpiece. It was his greatest effort and his last, without even waiting to be paid the illustrious craftsman departed this life, and was buried under an ornate tombstone whose wing cherubs would have afforded singularly little scope for the exercise of his favourite art. There remained, however, the widow Pincini to whom the six hundred francs were due, and thereupon arose the great crisis in the life of Henri Diplis, traveller of commerce. The legacy, under the stress of numerous little calls on its substance, had dwindled to very insignificant proportions, and when a pressing wine-bill and sundry other current accounts had been paid, there remained little more than four hundred and thirty francs to offer to the widow. The lady was properly indignant, not wholly, as she volubly explained, on account of the suggested writing off of a hundred and seventy francs, but also at the attempt to depreciate the value of her late husband's acknowledged masterpiece. In a week's time Diplis was obliged to reduce his offer to four hundred and five francs, which circumstance fanned the widow's indignation into a fury. She cancelled the sale of the work of art, and a few days later Diplis learned with a sense of consternation that she had presented it to the municipality of Bergamo, which had gratefully accepted it. He left the neighbourhood as unobtrusively as possible, and was genuinely relieved when his business commands took him to Rome, where he hoped his identity and that of the famous picture might be lost sight of. But he bore on his back the burden of the dead man's genius. On presenting himself one day in the steaming corridor of a vapour-bath, he was at once hustled back into his clothes by the proprietor, who was a North Italian, and who emphatically refused to allow the celebrated fall of Icarus to be publicly on view without the permission of the municipality of Bergamo. Public interest and official vigilance increased as the matter became more widely known, and Diplis was unable to take a simple dip in the sea or river on the hottest afternoon, unless clothed up to the collarbone in a substantial bathing garment. Later on the authorities of Bergamo conceived the idea that saltwater might be injurious to the masterpiece, and a perpetual injunction was obtained which debarred the muchly harassed commercial traveller from sea bathing under any circumstances. All together he was fervently thankful when his firm of employers found him a new range of activities in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux. His thankfulness however ceased abruptly at the Franco-Italian frontier, and imposing a ray of official force barred his departure, and he was sternly reminded of the stringent law which forbids the exportation of Italian works of art. A diplomatic Pali ensued between the Luxembourgian and Italian governments, and at one time the European situation became overcast with the possibilities of trouble. But the Italian governments would firm a decline to concern itself in the least with the fortunes or even the existence of agri-deplis commercial traveller, but was immovable in its decision that the fall of Icarus, by the late Pinchini and Reyes, at present the property of the municipality of Bergamo should not leave the country. The excitement died down in time, but the unfortunate deplis, who was of a constitutionally retiring disposition, found himself a few months later once more the storm-center of a furious controversy. A certain German art expert, who had obtained from the municipality of Bergamo permission to inspect the famous masterpiece, declared it to be a spurious Pinchini, probably the work of some pupil whom he had employed in his declining years. The evidence of deplis on the subject was obviously worthless, as he had been under the influence of the customary narcotics during the long process of pricking in the design. The editor of an Italian art journal refuted the contentions of the German expert, and undertook to prove that his private life did not conform to any modern standard of decency. The whole of Italy and Germany were drawn into the dispute, and the rest of Europe was soon involved in the quarrel. There were stormy scenes in the Spanish Parliament, and the University of Copenhagen bestowed a gold medal on the German expert, afterwards sending a commission to examine his proofs on the spot, while two Polish schoolboys in Paris committed suicide to show what they thought of the matter. Meanwhile the unhappy human background had no better than before, and it was not surprising that he drifted into the ranks of Italian anarchists. Four times at least he was escorted to the frontier as a dangerous and undesirable foreigner, but he was always brought back as the fall of Icarus attributed to Pinchini and Dreas' early 20th century, and then one day at an anarchist congress at Genoa a fellow worker in the heat of debate broke a file full of corrosive liquid over his back. The red shirt that he was wearing mitigated the effects, but the Icarus was ruined beyond recognition. His assailant was severely reprimanded for assaulting a fellow anarchist, and received seven years imprisonment for defacing a national art treasure. As soon as he was able to leave the hospital Henri Deplis was put across the frontier as an undesirable alien. In the quietest streets of Paris, especially in the neighborhood of the Ministry of Fine Arts, you may sometimes meet a depressed, anxious-looking man who, if you pass him the time of day, will answer you with a slight Luxembourgian accent. He nurses the illusion that he is one of the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, and hopes that the French government may be persuaded to buy him. On all other subjects I believe he is tolerably sane. End of the background. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis, short stories by Sarky. Hermann the Irrassible, a story of the Great Weep. It was in the second decade of the twentieth century, after the Great Plague had devastated England, that Hermann the Irrassible, nicknamed also the Wise, sat on the British throne. The mortal sickness had swept away the entire royal family unto the third and fourth generations, and thus it came to pass that Hermann the Fourteenth of Sackstrux and Wachstilstein, who had stood thirtieth in the Order of Succession, found himself one day ruler of the British dominions within and beyond the seas. He was one of the unexpected things that happened in politics, and he happened with great thoroughness. In many ways he was the most progressive monarch who had sat on an important throne. Before people knew where they were they were somewhere else. Even his ministers, progressive though they were by tradition, found it difficult to keep pace with his legislative suggestions. As a matter of fact, admitted the Prime Minister, we are hampered by these votes for women creatures. They disturb our meetings throughout the country, and they try to turn Downing Street into a sort of political picnic-ground. They must be dealt with," said Hermann. "'Delt with,' said the Prime Minister, exactly. Just so. But how?' "'I will draft you a bill,' said the King, sitting down at his type-writing machine, enacting that women shall vote at all future elections. Shall vote you observe, or to put it plainer, must. Voting will remain optional, as before, for male electors, but every woman between the ages of 21 and 70 will be obliged to vote. Not only at elections for Parliament, county councils, district boards, parish councils, and municipalities, but for coroners, school inspectors, church wardens, curators of museums, sanitary authorities, police-court interpreters, swimming-bath instructors, contractors, choirmasters, market school teachers, cathedral verges, and other local functionaries whose names I will add as they occur to me. All these offices will become elective, and failure to vote at any election falling within her area of residence will involve the female elector in a penalty of ten pounds. Absence, unsupported by an adequate medical certificate will not be accepted as an excuse. Pass this bill through the two houses of Parliament and bring it to me for signature the day after tomorrow. From the very outset the compulsory female franchise produced little or no relation, even in circles which had been loudest in demanding the vote. The bulk of the women of the country had been indifferent or hostile to the franchise's agitation, and the most fanatical suffragettes began to wonder what they had found attractive in the prospect of putting ballot papers into a box. In the country districts the task of carrying out the provisions of the new act was irksome enough. In the towns and cities it became an incubus. There seemed no end to the elections. Laundresses and semstresses had to hurry away from their work to vote, often for a candidate whose name they hadn't heard before and whom they selected at haphazard. Female clerks and waitresses got up extra early to get their voting done before starting off to their places of business. Society women found their arrangements impeded and upset by the continual necessity for attending the polling stations, and weekend parties and summer holidays became gradually a masculine luxury. As for Cairo and the Riviera they were possible only for genuine invalids or people of enormous wealth, for the accumulation of ten pound fines during a prolonged absence was a contingency that even ordinarily wealthy folk could hardly afford to risk. It was not wonderful that the female disfranchisement agitation became a formidable movement. The no votes for women league numbered its feminine adherence by the million. Its colours, citron and old Dutch matter were flaunted everywhere, and its battle him we don't want to vote became a popular refrain. As the government showed no signs of being impressed by peaceful persuasion more violent methods came into vogue. Meetings were disturbed, ministers were mobbed, policemen were bitten, and ordinary prison fare rejected and on the eve of the anniversary of Trafalgar women bound themselves in tears up the entire length of the Nelson column so that its customary floral decoration had to be abandoned. Still the government obstinately adhered to its conviction that women ought to have the vote. Then as a last resort some woman wit hit upon an expedient which it was strange no one had thought of before. The great weep was organised. Relays of women ten thousand at a time wept continuously in the public places of the metropolis. They wept in railway stations, in tubes and omnibuses, in the national gallery, at the army and navy stores, in St. James's Park, at ballad concerts, at princes, and in the Burlington arcade. The hitherto unbroken success of the brilliant farcical comedy Henry's Rabbit was imperiled by the presence of drearily weeping women in stalls and circle and gallery, and one of the brightest divorce cases that had been tried for many years was robbed of much of its sparkle by the lacrimose behaviour of a section of the audience. What are we to do? Asked the Prime Minister, whose cook had wept into all the breakfast-dishes, and whose nursemaid had gone out crying quietly and miserably to take the children for a walk in the park. There is a time for everything, said the King. There is a time to yield. Pass a measure through the two houses depriving women of the right to vote and bring it to me for the royal assent the day after tomorrow. As the Minister withdrew Herman the Irrassable, who was also nicknamed the Wise, gave a profound chuckle. There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream," he quoted. But I'm not sure, he added, that it's not the best way. End of Herman the Irrassable, a story of the Great Weep. This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redmond. The Chronicles of Clevis. Short Stories by Sarky. The Unrest Cure. On the rack in the railway carriage, immediately opposite Clevis, was a solidly wrought travelling bag with a carefully written label on which was inscribed J. P. Huddle, the Warren Tillfield near Slobara. Immediately below the rack sat the human embodiment of the label, a solid sedate individual, sedately dressed, sedately conversational. Even without his conversation, which was addressed to a friend seated by his side and touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the rectory, one could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and mental outlook of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling to leave anything to the imagination of a casual observer and his talk grew presently personal and introspective. I don't know how it is, he told his friend. I'm not much over forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of elderly middle age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like everything to be exactly in its accustomed place. We like things to happen exactly at their appointed times. We like everything to be usual, orderly, punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling matter a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin tree on the lawn. This year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think we both feel that change is unnecessary and just a little irritating. Perhaps," said the friend, it is a different thrush. We have suspected that, said JP Huddle, and I think it gives us even more cause for annoyance. We don't feel that we want a change of thrush at our time of life, and yet, as I have said, we have scarcely reached an age when these things should make themselves seriously felt. What you want," said the friend, is an unrest cure. An unrest cure? I've never heard of such a thing. You've heard of rest cures for people who've broken down under stress of too much worry and strenuous living. Well, you're suffering from over-much repose and placidity, and you need the opposite kind of treatment. But where would one go for such a thing? Well, you might stand as an orange candidate for Kilkenny, or do a course of district visiting in one of the apache quarters of Paris, or give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's music was written by Gambetta, and there's always the interior of Morocco to travel in. But to be really effective, the unrest cure ought to be tried in the home. How you would do it, isn't the faintest idea. It was at this point in the conversation that Clevis became galvanized into alert attention. After all, his two days' visit to an elderly relative at Slobara did not promise much excitement. Before the train had stopped he had decorated his sinister shirt-calf with the inscription, J. P. Huddle, the warden till-field near Slobara. Two mornings later, Mr. Huddle broke in on his sister's privacy as she sat reading Country Life in the morning-room. It was her day and hour and place for reading Country Life and the intrusion was absolutely irregular. But he bore in his hand a telegram, and in that household telegrams were recognized as happening by the Hand of God. This particular telegram, is the work of the nature of a thunderbolt. Bishop examining confirmation class in neighborhood unable stay rectory on account measles invokes your hospitality, sending secretary a range. I scarcely know the bishop. I've only spoken to him once, exclaimed J. P. Huddle with the exculpating air of one who realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to strange bishops. Miss Huddle was the first to rally. She disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did, but the womanly instinct in her told her that thunderbolts must be fed. We can carry the cold duck, she said. It was not the appointed day for carry, but the little orange envelope involved a certain departure from rule when her brother said nothing, but his eyes thanked her for being brave. A young gentleman to see you announced the parlour-maid. The secretary murmured the Huddle's in unison. They instantly stiffened into a demeanour which proclaimed that though they held all strangers to be guilty, they were willing to hear anything they might have to say in their defence. The young gentleman who came into the room with a certain elegant haughtiness was not at all Huddle's idea of a bishop's secretary. He had not supposed that the episcopal establishment could have afforded such an expensively upholstered article when there were so many other claims on its resources. The face was fleetingly familiar. If he had bestowed more attention on the fellow traveller sitting opposite him in the railway two days before, he might have recognised Clovis in his present visitor. You are the bishop's secretary? Asked Huddle, becoming consciously deferential. His confidential secretary answered Clovis. You may call me Stanislaus. My other name doesn't matter. The bishop and Colonel Alberti may be here to lunch. I shall be here in any case. It sounded rather like the programme of a royal visit. The bishop is examining a confirmation class in the neighbourhood, isn't he? Asked Miss Huddle. Ostensibly, was the dark reply followed by a request for a large-scale map of the locality. Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of the map when another telegram arrived. It was addressed to Prince Stanislaus, care of Huddle, the Warren, etc. Clovis glanced at the contents and announced the bishop and Alberti won't be here till late in the afternoon. Then he returned to his scrutiny of the map. The luncheon was not a very festive function. The princely secretary ate and drank with fair appetite but severely discouraged conversation. At the finish of the meal he broke suddenly into a radiant smile, thanked his hostess for a charming repast and kissed her hand with deferential rapture. Miss Huddle was unable to decide in her mind whether the action savoured of Louis Catozian courtliness or the reprehensible Roman attitude towards the Sabine women. It was not her day for having a headache but she felt that the circumstances excused her and retired to her room to have as much headache as was possible before the bishop's arrival. Clovis, having asked the way to the nearest telegraph office, disappeared presently down the carriage-drive. Mr Huddle met him in the hall some two hours later and asked when the bishop would arrive. He is in the library with Alberti, was the reply. But why wasn't I told? I never knew he had come, exclaimed Huddle. No one knows he is here, said Clovis, the quieter we can keep matters the better and on no account disturb him in the library those are his orders. But what is all this mystery about and who is Alberti and isn't the bishop going to have tea? The bishop is out for blood, not tea. Blood, gasped Huddle, who did not find that the thunderbolt improved on acquaintance. Tonight is going to be a great night in the history of Christendom, said Clovis, we are going to massacre every Jew in the neighbourhood. To massacre the Jews, said Huddle indignantly, do you mean to tell me there's a general rising against them? No, it's the bishop's own idea, he's in there arranging all the details now. But the bishop is such a tolerant, humane man, that is precisely what will heighten the effect of his action, the sensation will be enormous. That at least Huddle could believe. He will be hanged, he exclaimed with conviction. A motor is waiting to carry him to the coast where a steam yacht is in readiness. But there aren't thirty Jews in the whole neighbourhood, protested Huddle, whose brain under the repeated shocks of the day was operating with the uncertainty of a telegraph wire during earthquake disturbances. We have twenty-six on our list," said Clovis, referring to a bundle of notes. We shall be able to deal with them all the more thoroughly. Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a man like Sir Leon Burberry? Stammered Huddle. He's one of the most respected men in the country. He's down on our list," said Clovis carelessly. After all, we've got men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't have to rely on local assistants. And we've got some Boy Scouts helping us as auxiliaries. Boy Scouts? Yes, when they understood there was real killing to be done they were even keener than the men. This thing will be a blot on the twentieth century. And your house will be the blotting pad. And at half the papers of Europe and the United States will publish pictures of it. By the way, I've sent some photographs of you and your sister that I found in the library to the Matin and D'Vulcher. I hope you don't mind. Also a sketch of the staircase. Most of the killing will probably be done on the staircase. The emotions that were surging in JP Huddle's brain were almost too intense to be disclosed in speech. But he managed to gasp out there aren't any Jews in this house. Not at present, said Clovis. I shall go to the police, shouted Huddle with sudden energy. In the shrubbery, said Clovis, are posted ten men who have orders to fire on anyone who leaves the house without my signal of permission. Another armed picket is in ambush near the front gate. The boy scouts watch the back premises. At this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor-horn was heard from the drive. Huddle rushed to the hall door with the feeling of a man half awakened from a nightmare and beheld Sir Leon Burberry who had driven himself over in his car. I got your telegram, he said. What's up? Telegram? It seemed to be a day of telegrams. Come here at once, urgent James Huddle was the perpet of the message displayed before Huddle's bewildered eyes. I see it all! he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken with agitation and with a look of agony in the direction of the shrubbery he hauled the astonished Burberry into the house. Tea had just been laid in the hall, but the now thoroughly panic-stricken Huddle dragged his protesting guest upstairs and in a few minutes' time the entire household had been summoned to that region of momentary safety. Clovis alone graced the tea-table with his presence. The fanatics in the library were evidently too immersed in their monstrous machinations to dally with the solace of tea-carp and hot toast. Once the youth rose in answer to the summons of the front doorbell and admitted Mr. Paul Isaacs, shoemaker and parish-councillor who had also received a pressing invitation to the Warren. With a natrocious assumption of courtesy which a Borgia could hardly have outdone the secretary escorted this new captive of his net to the head of the stairway where his involuntary host awaited him and then ensued a long, ghastly vigil of watching and waiting. Once or twice Clovis left the house to stroll across to the shrubbery returning always to the library for the purpose evidently of making a brief report. Once he took in the letters from the evening postman and brought them to the top of the stairs with punctilious politeness. After his next absence he came halfway up the stairs to make an announcement. The Boy Scouts mistook my signal and had killed the postman. I had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see. Another time I shall do better. The housemaid who was engaged to be married to the evening postman gave way to clamorous grief. Remember that your mistress has a headache, said JP Huddle. Miss Huddle's headache was worse. Clovis hastened downstairs and after a short visit to the library returned with another message. The bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache. He is issuing orders that as far as possible no firearm shall be used near the house. Any killing that is necessary on the premises will be done with cold steel. The bishop does not see why a man should not be a gentleman as well as a Christian. That was the last they saw of Clovis. It was nearly seven o'clock and his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner. But though he had left them forever the lurking suggestion of his presence haunted the lower regions of the house during the long hours of the wakeful night and every creek of the stairway, every rustle of wind through the shrubbery was fraught with horrible meaning. At about seven next morning the gardener's boy and the early postman finally convinced the watchers that the twentieth century was still unblotted. I don't suppose used Clovis as an early train bore him townwards that they will be in the least grateful for the unrest cure. End of the Unrest Cure This recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. This reading is by Graham Redman. The Chronicles of Clovis. Short Stories by Sarkie The Gesting of Arlington Stringham Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin house and a very thin joke something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintentional but a fellow member who did not wish it to be knows that he was asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. One or two of the papers noted a laugh in brackets and another which was notorious for the carelessness of its political news mentioned laughter. Things often begin in that way. Arlington made a joke in the House last night said Eleanor Stringham to her mother. For years we've been married neither of us has made jokes and I don't like it now. I'm afraid it's the beginning of the rift in the lute. What lute? said her mother. It's a quotation, said Eleanor. To say that anything was a quotation was an excellent method in Eleanor's eyes for withdrawing it from discussion just as you could always defend indifferent lamb late in the season in which it is being its mutton. And, of course, Arlington Stringham continued to tread the thorny past of conscious humour into which fate had beckoned him. The country is looking very green but, after all, that's what it's there for he remarked to his wife two days later. That's very modern and I daresay very clever but I'm afraid it's wasted on me she observed coldly. Since she had known how much effort it had cost him to make the remark she might have greeted it in a kinder spirit. It is the tragedy of human endeavour that it works so often unseen and unguessed. Arlington said nothing not from injured pride but because he was thinking hard for something to say. Eleanor mistook his silence for an assumption of tolerant superiority and her anger prompted her to a further jibe. You had better tell it to Lady Isabel. I've no doubt she would appreciate it. Lady Isabel was seen everywhere with a fawn-coloured collie at a time when everyone else kept nothing but picnese and she had once eaten four green apples at an afternoon tea in the botanical gardens so she was widely credited with a rather unpleasant wit. The censorious said she slept in a hammock and understood Yates's poems but her family denied both stories. The rift is widening to an abyss," said Eleanor to her mother that afternoon. I should not tell that to anyone," remarked her mother after long reflection. Naturally I should not talk about it very much," said Eleanor but why shouldn't I mention it to anyone? This, in a lute, there isn't room. Eleanor's outlook on life did not improve as the afternoon wore on. The page boy had brought from the library by mere and wold, instead of by mere chance the book which everyone denied having read. The unwelcome substitute appeared to be a collection of nature-notes contributed by the author to the pages of some northern weekly and when one had been prepared to plunge with disapproving mind into a regrettable chronicle of ill-spent lives it was intensely irritating to read, the dainty yellow hammers are now with us and flaunt their jaundice livery from every bush and hillock. Besides, the thing was so obviously untrue. Either there must be hardly any bushes or hillocks in those parts or the country must be fearfully overstocked with yellow hammers. The thing scarcely seemed worth telling such a lie about and the page boy stood there with his sleekly brushed and parted hair and his air of chaste and callous indifference to the desires and passions of the world. Eleanor hated boys and she would have liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a woman who had no children of her own. She turned at random to another paragraph. Lye quietly concealed in the fern and bramble in the gap by the old row and tree and you may see almost every evening during early summer a pair of lesser white throats creeping up and down the nettles and hedge growth that mask their nesting place. The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation Eleanor would not have watched the most brilliant performance at his majesty's theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable circumstances and to be asked to watch lesser white throats creeping up and down a nettle almost every evening during the height of the season struck her as an imputation on her intelligence that was positively offensive. Impatiently she transferred her attention to the dinner menu which the boy had thoughtfully brought in as an alternative to the more bullied literary fare. Rabbit Curry met her eye and the lines of disapproval deepened on her already puckered brow. The cook was a great believer in the influence of environment and nourished an obstinate conviction that if you brought rabbit and curry powder together in one dish a rabbit curry would be the result and Clovis and the odious Bertie Phantan were coming to dinner. Surely thought Eleanor if Arlington knew how much she had had that day to try her he would refrain from joke-making. At dinner that night it was Eleanor herself who mentioned the name of a certain statesman who may be decently covered under the disguise of X. X, said Arlington Stringham has the soul of a meringue. It was a useful remark to have on hand because it applied equally well to four prominent statesmen of the day which quadrupled the opportunities for using it. Marangs haven't got souls, said Eleanor's mother. It's a mercy that they haven't, said Clovis, they would be always losing them and people like my aunt would get up missions to marangs and say it was wonderful how much one could teach them and how much more one could learn from them. What could you learn from a meringue? asked Eleanor's mother. My aunt has been known to learn humility from an ex-Viceroy, said Clovis. I wish Cook would learn to make curry or have the sense to leave it alone, said Arlington suddenly and savagely. Eleanor's face softened. It was like one of his old remarks in the days when there was no abyss between them. It was during the debate on the Foreign Office vote that Stringer made his great remark that the people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally. It was not brilliant, but it came in the middle of a dull speech, and the house was quite pleased with it. Old gentlemen with bad memories said it reminded them of Disraeli. It was Eleanor's friend Gertrude Ilpton who drew her attention to Arlington's newest outbreak. Eleanor in these days avoided the morning papers. It's very modern and I suppose very clever, she observed. Of course it's clever, said Gertrude. All Lady Isabel's sayings are clever and luckily they bear repeating. Are you sure it's one of her sayings? asked Eleanor. My dear, I've heard her say it dozens of times. So that is where he gets his humour, said Eleanor slowly, and the hard lines deepened round her mouth. The death of Eleanor Stringer from an overdose of chloral occurring at the end of a rather uneventful season excited a certain amount of unobtrusive speculation. Clovis, who perhaps exaggerated the importance of curry in the home, hinted at domestic sorrow. And of course Arlington never knew. It was the tragedy of his life that he should miss the fullest effect of his jesting. End of the jesting of Arlington's Stringham. This recording is in the public domain.