Beasts and Super-Beasts

by Saki

  CLOVIS ON PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES

  Marion Eggelby sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she everwillingly talked about—her offspring and their varied perfections andaccomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a receptivemood; the younger generation of Eggelby, depicted in the glowingimprobable colours of parent impressionism, aroused in him no enthusiasm.Mrs. Eggelby, on the other hand, was furnished with enthusiasm enough fortwo.

  “You would like Eric,” she said, argumentatively rather than hopefully.Clovis had intimated very unmistakably that he was unlikely to careextravagantly for either Amy or Willie. “Yes, I feel sure you would likeEric. Every one takes to him at once. You know, he always reminds me ofthat famous picture of the youthful David—I forget who it’s by, but it’svery well known.”

  “That would be sufficient to set me against him, if I saw much of him,”said Clovis. “Just imagine at auction bridge, for instance, when one wastrying to concentrate one’s mind on what one’s partner’s originaldeclaration had been, and to remember what suits one’s opponents hadoriginally discarded, what it would be like to have some one persistentlyreminding one of a picture of the youthful David. It would be simplymaddening. If Eric did that I should detest him.”

  “Eric doesn’t play bridge,” said Mrs. Eggelby with dignity.

  “Doesn’t he?” asked Clovis; “why not?”

  “None of my children have been brought up to play card games,” said Mrs.Eggelby; “draughts and halma and those sorts of games I encourage. Ericis considered quite a wonderful draughts-player.”

  “You are strewing dreadful risks in the path of your family,” saidClovis; “a friend of mine who is a prison chaplain told me that among theworst criminal cases that have come under his notice, men condemned todeath or to long periods of penal servitude, there was not a singlebridge-player. On the other hand, he knew at least two expertdraughts-players among them.”

  “I really don’t see what my boys have got to do with the criminalclasses,” said Mrs. Eggelby resentfully. “They have been most carefullybrought up, I can assure you that.”

  “That shows that you were nervous as to how they would turn out,” saidClovis. “Now, my mother never bothered about bringing me up. She justsaw to it that I got whacked at decent intervals and was taught thedifference between right and wrong; there is some difference, you know,but I’ve forgotten what it is.”

  “Forgotten the difference between right and wrong!” exclaimed Mrs.Eggelby.

  “Well, you see, I took up natural history and a whole lot of othersubjects at the same time, and one can’t remember everything, can one? Iused to know the difference between the Sardinian dormouse and theordinary kind, and whether the wry-neck arrives at our shores earlierthan the cuckoo, or the other way round, and how long the walrus takes ingrowing to maturity; I daresay you knew all those sorts of things once,but I bet you’ve forgotten them.”

  “Those things are not important,” said Mrs. Eggelby, “but—”

  “The fact that we’ve both forgotten them proves that they are important,”said Clovis; “you must have noticed that it’s always the important thingsthat one forgets, while the trivial, unnecessary facts of life stick inone’s memory. There’s my cousin, Editha Clubberley, for instance; I cannever forget that her birthday is on the 12th of October. It’s a matterof utter indifference to me on what date her birthday falls, or whethershe was born at all; either fact seems to me absolutely trivial, orunnecessary—I’ve heaps of other cousins to go on with. On the otherhand, when I’m staying with Hildegarde Shrubley I can never remember theimportant circumstance whether her first husband got his unenviablereputation on the Turf or the Stock Exchange, and that uncertainty rulesSport and Finance out of the conversation at once. One can never mentiontravel, either, because her second husband had to live permanentlyabroad.”

  “Mrs. Shrubley and I move in very different circles,” said Mrs. Eggelbystiffly.

  “No one who knows Hildegarde could possibly accuse her of moving in acircle,” said Clovis; “her view of life seems to be a non-stop run withan inexhaustible supply of petrol. If she can get some one else to payfor the petrol so much the better. I don’t mind confessing to you thatshe has taught me more than any other woman I can think of.”

  “What kind of knowledge?” demanded Mrs. Eggelby, with the air a jurymight collectively wear when finding a verdict without leaving the box.

  “Well, among other things, she’s introduced me to at least four differentways of cooking lobster,” said Clovis gratefully. “That, of course,wouldn’t appeal to you; people who abstain from the pleasures of thecard-table never really appreciate the finer possibilities of thedining-table. I suppose their powers of enlightened enjoyment getatrophied from disuse.”

  “An aunt of mine was very ill after eating a lobster,” said Mrs. Eggelby.

  “I daresay, if we knew more of her history, we should find out that she’doften been ill before eating the lobster. Aren’t you concealing the factthat she’d had measles and influenza and nervous headache and hysteria,and other things that aunts do have, long before she ate the lobster?Aunts that have never known a day’s illness are very rare; in fact, Idon’t personally know of any. Of course if she ate it as a child of twoweeks old it might have been her first illness—and her last. But if thatwas the case I think you should have said so.”

  “I must be going,” said Mrs. Eggelby, in a tone which had been thoroughlysterilised 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 lookforward to meeting him some day.”

  “Good-bye,” said Mrs. Eggelby frostily; the supplementary remark whichshe made at the back of her throat was—

  “I’ll take care that you never shall!”