The Complete Short Stories

by Saki

  “There are no sheep here, I tell you,” screamed Waldo.

  “I’ve only got your word for it,” said Bertie, whisking most of the bedclothes on to the floor; “if you weren’t concealing something you wouldn’t be so agitated.”

  Waldo was by this time convinced that Van Tahn was raving mad, and made an anxious effort to humour him.

  “Go back to bed like a dear fellow,” he pleaded, “and your sheep will turn up all right in the morning.”

  “I dare say,” said Bertie gloomily, “without their tails. Nice fool I shall look with a lot of Manx sheep.”

  And by way of emphasizing his annoyance at the prospect he sent Waldo’s pillows flying to the top of the wardrobe.

  “But why no tails?” asked Waldo, whose teeth were chattering with fear and rage and lowered temperature.

  “My dear boy, have you never heard the ballad of Little Bo-Peep?” said Bertie with a chuckle. “It’s my character in the Game, you know. If I didn’t go hunting about for my lost sheep no one would be able to guess who I was; and now go to sleepy weeps like a good child or I shall be cross with you.”

  “I leave you to imagine,” wrote Waldo in the course of a long letter to his mother, “how much sleep I was able to recover that night, and you know how essential nine uninterrupted hours of slumber are to my health.”

  On the other hand he was able to devote some wakeful hours to exercises in breathing wrath and fury against Bertie van Tahn.

  Breakfast at Blonzecourt was a scattered meal, on the “come when you please” principle, but the house-party was supposed to gather in full strength at lunch. On the day after the “Game” had been started there were, however, some notable absentees. Waldo Plubley, for instance, was reported to be nursing a headache. A large breakfast and an “A.B.C.” had been taken up to his room, but he had made no appearance in the flesh.

  “I expect he’s playing up to some character,” said Vera Durmot; “isn’t there a thing of Molière’s, ‘Le Malade Imaginaire’? I expect he’s that.”

  Eight or nine lists came out, and were duly pencilled with the suggestion.

  “And where are the Klammersteins?” asked Lady Blonze; “they’re usually so punctual.”

  “Another character pose, perhaps,” said Bertie van Tahn; “‘the Lost Ten Tribes.’”

  “But there are only three of them. Besides, they’ll want their lunch. Hasn’t any one seen anything of them?”

  “Didn’t you take them out in your car?” asked Blanche Boveal, addressing herself to Cyril Skatterly.

  “Yes, took them out to Slogberry Moor immediately after breakfast. Miss Durmot came too.”

  “I saw you and Vera come back,” said Lady Blonze, “but I didn’t see the Klammersteins. Did you put them down in the villager”

  “No,” said Skatterly shortly.

  “But where are they? Where did you leave them?”

  “We left them on Slogberry Moor,” said Vera calmly.

  “On Slogberry Moor? Why, it’s more than thirty miles away! How are they going to get back?”

  “We didn’t stop to consider that,” said Skatterly; “we asked them to get out for a moment, on the pretence that the car had stuck, and then we dashed off full speed and left them there.”

  “But how dare you do such a thing? It’s most inhuman! Why, it’s been snowing for the last hour.”

  “I expect there’ll be a cottage or farmhouse somewhere if they walk a mile or two.”

  “But why on earth have you done it?”

  The question came in a chorus of indignant bewilderment.

  “That would be telling what our characters are meant to be,” said Vera.

  “Didn’t I warn you?” said Sir Nicholas tragically to his wife.

  “It’s something to do with Spanish history; we don’t mind giving you that clue,” said Skatterly, helping himself cheerfully to salad, and then Bertie van Tahn broke forth into peals of joyous laughter.

  “I’ve got it! Ferdinand and Isabella deporting the Jews! Oh lovely! Those two have certainly won the prize; we shan’t get anything to beat that for thoroughness.”

  Lady Blonze’s Christmas party was talked about and written about to an extent that she had not anticipated in her most ambitious moments. The letters from Waldo’s mother would alone have made it memorable.

  COUSIN TERESA

  BASSET HARROWCLUFF returned to the home of his fathers, after an absence of four years, distinctly well pleased with himself. He was only thirty-one, but he had put in some useful service in an out-of-the-way, though not unimportant, corner of the world. He had quieted a province, kept open a trade route, enforced the tradition of respect which is worth the ransom of many kings in out-of-the-way regions, and done the whole business on rather less expenditure than would be requisite for organizing a charity in the home country. In Whitehall and places where they think, they doubtless thought well of him. It was not inconceivable, his father allowed himself to imagine, that Basset’s name might figure in the next list of Honours.

  Basset was inclined to be rather contemptuous of his half-brother, Lucas, whom he found feverishly engrossed in the same medley of elaborate futilities that had claimed his whole time and energies, such as they were, four years ago, and almost as far back before that as he could remember. It was the contempt of the man of action for the man of activities, and it was probably reciprocated. Lucas was an over-well nourished individual, some nine years Basset’s senior, with a colouring that would have been accepted as a sign of intensive culture in an asparagus, but probably meant in this case mere abstention from exercise. His hair and forehead furnished a recessional note in a personality that was in all other respects obtrusive and assertive. There was certainly no Semitic blood in Lucas’s parentage, but his appearance contrived to convey at least a suggestion of Jewish extraction. Clovis Sangrail, who knew most of his associates by sight, said it was undoubtedly a case of protective mimicry.

  Two days after Basset’s return, Lucas frisked in to lunch in a state of twittering excitement that could not be restrained even for the immediate consideration of soup, but had to be verbally discharged in spluttering competition with mouthfuls of vermicelli.

  “I’ve got hold of an idea for something immense,” he babbled, “something that is simply It.”

  Basset gave a short laugh that would have done equally well as a snort, if one had wanted to make the exchange. His half-brother was in the habit of discovering futilities that were “simply It” at frequently recurring intervals. The discovery generally meant that he flew up to town, preceded by glowingly worded telegrams, to see some one connected with the stage or the publishing world, got together one or two momentous luncheon parties, flitted in and out of “Gambrinus” for one or two evenings, and returned home with an air of subdued importance and the asparagus tint slightly intensified. The great idea was generally forgotten a few weeks later in the excitement of some new discovery.

  “The inspiration came to me whilst I was dressing,” announced Lucas; “it will be the thing in the next music-hall revue. All London will go mad over it. It’s just a couplet; of course there will be other words, but they won’t matter. Listen:

  Cousin Teresa takes out Cæsar,

  Fido, Jock, and the big borzoi.

  A lilting, catchy sort of refrain, you see, and big-drum business on the two syllables of bor-zoi. It’s immense. And I’ve thought out all the business of it; the singer will sing the first verse alone, then during the second verse Cousin Teresa will walk through, followed by four wooden dogs on wheels; Caæsar will be an Irish terrier, Fido a black poodle, Jock a fox-terrier, and the borzoi, of course, will be a borzoi. During the third verse Cousin Teresa will come on alone, and the dogs will be drawn across by themselves from the opposite wing; then Cousin Teresa will catch on to the singer and go off-stage in one direction, while dogs’ procession goes off in the other, crossing en route, which is always very effective. There’ll be a lot of applause there, and for the f
ourth verse Cousin Teresa will come on in sables and the dogs will all have coats on. Then I’ve got a great idea for the fifth verse; each of the dogs will be led on by a Nut, and Cousin Teresa will come on from the opposite side, crossing en route, always effective, and then she turns round and leads the whole lot of them off on a string, and all the time every one singing like mad:

  Cousin Teresa takes out Cæsar,

  Fido, Jock, and the big borzoi.

  Tum-Tum! Drum business on the two last syllables. I’m so excited, I shan’t sleep a wink tonight. I’m off tomorrow by the ten-fifteen. I’ve wired to Hermanova to lunch with me.”

  If any of the rest of the family felt any excitement over the creation of Cousin Teresa, they were signally successful in concealing the fact.

  “Poor Lucas does take his silly little ideas seriously,” said Colonel Harrowcluff afterwards in the smoking-room.

  “Yes,” said his younger son, in a slightly less tolerant tone, “in a day or two he’ll come back and tell us that his sensational masterpiece is above the heads of the public, and in about three weeks’ time he’ll be wild with enthusiasm over a scheme to dramatize the poems of Herrick or something equally promising.”

  And then an extraordinary thing befell. In defiance of all precedent Lucas’s glowing anticipations were justified and endorsed by the course of events. If Cousin Teresa was above the heads of the public, the public heroically adapted itself to her altitude. Introduced as an experiment at a dull moment in a new revue, the success of the item was unmistakable; the calls were so insistent and uproarious that even Lucas’s ample devisings of additional “business” scarcely sufficed to keep pace with the demand. Packed houses on successive evenings confirmed the verdict of the first night audience, stalls and boxes filled significantly just before the turn came on, and emptied significantly after the last encore had been given. The manager tearfully acknowledged that Cousin Teresa was It. Stage hands and supers and programme sellers acknowledged it to one another without the least reservation. The name of the revue dwindled to secondary importance, and vast letters of electric blue blazoned the words “Cousin Teresa” from the front of the great palace of pleasure. And of course, the magic of the famous refrain laid its spell all over the Metropolis. Restaurant proprietors were obliged to provide the members of their orchestras with painted wooden dogs on wheels, in order that the much-demanded and always conceded melody should be rendered with the necessary spectacular effects, and the crash of bottles and forks on the tables at the mention of the big borzoi usually drowned the sincerest efforts of drum or cymbals. Nowhere and at no time could one get away from the double thump that brought up the rear of the refrain; revellers reeling home at night banged it on doors and hoardings, milkmen clashed their cans to its cadence, messenger boys hit smaller messenger boys resounding double smacks on the same principle. And the more thoughtful circles of the great city were not deaf to the claims and significance of the popular melody. An enterprising and emancipated preacher discoursed from his pulpit on the inner meaning of “Cousin Teresa,” and Lucas Harrowcluff was invited to lecture on the subject of his great achievement to members of the Young Men’s Endeavour League, the Nine Arts Club, and other learned and willing-to-learn bodies. In Society it seemed to be the one thing people really cared to talk about; men and women of middle age and average education might be seen together in corners earnestly discussing, not the question whether Servia should have an outlet on the Adriatic, or the possibilities of a British success in international polo contests, but the more absorbing topic of the problematic Aztec or Nilotic origin of the Teresa motif.

  “Politics and patriotism are so boring and so out of date,” said a revered lady who had some pretensions to oracular utterance; “we are too cosmopolitan nowadays to be really moved by them. That is why one welcomes an intelligible production like ‘Cousin Teresa,’ that has a genuine message for one. One can’t understand the message all at once, of course, but one felt from the very first that it was there. I’ve been to see it eighteen times and I’m going again tomorrow and on Thursday. One can’t see it often enough.”

  “It would be rather a popular move if we gave this Harrowcluff person a knighthood or something of the sort,” said the Minister reflectively.

  “Which Harrowcluff?” asked his secretary.

  “Which? There is only one, isn’t there?” said the Minister; “the ‘Cousin Teresa’man, of course. I think every one would be pleased if we knighted him. Yes, you can put him down on the list of certainties—under the letter L.”

  “The letter L,” said the secretary, who was new to his job: “does that stand for Liberalism or liberality?”

  Most of the recipients of Ministerial favour were expected to qualify in both of those subjects.

  “Literature,” explained the Minister.

  And thus, after a fashion, Colonel Harrowcluff’s expectation of seeing his son’s name in the list of Honours was gratified.

  THE YARKAND MANNER

  SIR LULWORTH QUAYNE was making a leisurely progress through the Zoological Society’s Gardens in company with his nephew, recently returned from Mexico. The latter was interested in comparing and contrasting allied types of animals occurring in the North American and Old World fauna.

  “One of the most remarkable things in the wanderings of species,” he observed, “is the sudden impulse to trek and migrate that breaks out now and again, for no apparent reason, in communities of hitherto stay-at-home animals.”

  “In human affairs the same phenomenon is occasionally noticeable,” said Sir Lulworth; “perhaps the most striking instance of it occurred in this country while you were away in the wilds of Mexico. I mean the wander fever which suddenly displayed itself in the managing and editorial staffs of certain London newspapers. It began with the stampede of the entire staff of one of our most brilliant and enterprising weeklies to the banks of the Seine and the heights of Montmartre. The migration was a brief one, but it heralded an era of restlessness in the Press world which lent quite a new meaning to the phrase ‘newspaper circulation.’ Other editorial staffs were not slow to imitate the example that had been set them. Paris soon dropped out of fashion as being too near home; Nürnberg, Seville, and Salonica became more favoured as planting-out grounds for the personnel of not only weekly but daily papers as well. The localities were perhaps not always well chosen; the fact of a leading organ of Evangelical thought being edited for two successive fortnights from Trouville and Monte Carlo was generally admitted to have been a mistake. And even when enterprising and adventurous editors took themselves and their staffs further afield there were some unavoidable clashings. For instance, the Scrutator, Sporting Bluff and The Damsels’ Own Paper all pitched on Khartoum for the same week. It was, perhaps, a desire to out-distance all possible competition that influenced the management of the Daily Intelligencer, one of the most solid and respected organs of Liberal opinion, in its decision to transfer its offices for three or four weeks from Fleet Street to Eastern Turkestan, allowing, of course, a necessary margin of time for the journey there and back. This was, in many respects, the most remarkable of all the Press stampedes that were experienced at this time. There was no make-believe about the undertaking; proprietor, manager, editor, sub-editors, leader-writers, principal reporters, and so forth, all took part in what was popularly alluded to as the Drang nach Osten; an intelligent and efficient office-boy was all that was left in the deserted hive of editorial industry.”

  “That was doing things rather thoroughly, wasn’t it?” said the nephew.

  “Well, you see,” said Sir Lulworth, “the migration idea was falling somewhat into disrepute from the half-hearted manner in which it was occasionally carried out. You were not impressed by the information that such and such a paper was being edited and brought out at Lisbon or Innsbruck if you chanced to see the principal leader-writer or the art editor lunching as usual at their accustomed restaurants. The Daily Intelligencer was determined to give no loophole for
cavil at the genuineness of its pilgrimage, and it must be admitted that to a certain extent the arrangements made for transmitting copy and carrying on the usual features of the paper during the long outward journey worked smoothly and well. The series of articles which commenced at Baku on ‘What Cobdenism might do for the camel industry’ ranks among the best of the recent contributions to Free Trade literature, while the views on foreign policy enunciated ‘from a roof in Yarkand’ showed at least as much grasp of the international situation as those that had germinated within half a mile of Downing Street. Quite in keeping, too, with the older and better traditions of British journalism was the manner of the home-coming; no bombast, no personal advertisement, no flamboyant interviews. Even a complimentary luncheon at the Voyagers’ Club was courteously declined. Indeed, it began to be felt that the self-effacement of the returned pressmen was being carried to a pedantic length. Foreman compositors, advertisement clerks, and other members of the non-editorial staff, who had, of course, taken no part in the great trek, found it as impossible to get into direct communication with the editor and his satellites now that they had returned as when they had been excusably inaccessible in Central Asia. The sulky, overworked office-boy, who was the one connecting link between the editorial brain and the business departments of the paper, sardonically explained the new aloofness as the ‘Yarkand manner.’Most of the reporters and sub-editors seemed to have been dismissed in autocratic fashion since their return and new ones engaged by letter; to these the editor and his immediate associates remained an unseen presence, issuing its instructions solely through the medium of curt type-written notes. Something mystic and Tibetan and forbidden had replaced the human bustle and democratic simplicity of pre-migration days, and the same experience was encountered by those who made social overtures to the returned wanderers. The most brilliant hostess of Twentieth Century London flung the pearl of her hospitality into the unresponsive trough of the editorial letter-box; it seemed as if nothing short of a Royal command would drag the hermit-souled revenants from their self-imposed seclusion. People began to talk unkindly of the effect of high altitudes and Eastern atmosphere on minds and temperaments unused to such luxuries. The Yarkand manner was not popular.”