The Complete Short Stories

PENGUIN BOOKS

The Complete Short Stories

Hector Hugh Munro was born in 1870 in Burma, the son of a senior official in the Burma police. He was brought up in Devonshire and went to school in Exmouth and at Bedford Grammar School; later his father retired and took over his education by travelling with him widely in Europe. He joined the Burma police, but resigned because of ill health after a year's service. He began his writing career with political sketches for the
Westminster Gazette
and then worked as a foreign correspondent for the
Morning Post
in the Balkans, Russia and Paris. During this time he brought out his first collection of short stories,
Reginald
(1904). This was followed by
Reginald in Russia
(1910),
The Chronicles of Clovis
(1911),
The Unbearable Bassington
(1912) and
Beasts and Superbeasts
(1914). In 1914 he published
When William Came,
a pro-war fantasy of England under German occupation; his ‘patriotic' sketches from the Western Front were collected as
The Square Egg
(1924). He enlisted as a private in 1914, refused a commission, went to France and was killed in 1916 at Beaumont Hamel. His pseudonym ‘Saki' is taken from the last stanza of
The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam.

H. H. MUNRO

The Complete Short Stories
Saki

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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This edition first published by Doubleday & Company Inc., 1976
First published in
The Penguin Complete Saki
1982
This edition published in Penguin Classics 2000
11

Copyright © Doubleday & Company Inc., 1976
All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

EISBN: 978–0–141–90763–5

CONTENTS

Reginald

Reginald

Reginald on Christmas Presents

Reginald on the Academy

Reginald at the Theatre

Reginald's Peace Poem

Reginald's Choir Treat

Reginald on Worries

Reginald on House-Parties

Reginald at the Carlton

Reginald on Besetting Sins

Reginald's Drama

Reginald on Tariffs

Reginald's Christmas Revel

Reginald's Rubaiyat

The Innocence of Reginald

Reginald in Russia

Reginald in Russia

The Reticence of Lady Anne

The Lost Sanjak

The Sex That Doesn't Shop

The Blood-Feud of Toad-Water

A Young Turkish Catastrophe

Judkin of the Parcels

Gabriel-Ernest

The Saint and the Goblin

The Soul of Laploshka

The Bag

The Strategist

Cross Currents

The Baker's Dozen

The Mouse

The Chronicles of Clovis

Esmé

The Match-Maker

Tobermory

Mrs. Packletide's Tiger

The Stampeding of Lady Bastable

The Background

Hermann the Irascible–A Story of the Great Weep

The Unrest-Cure

The Jesting of Arlington Stringham

Sredni Vashtar

Adrian

The Chaplet

The Quest

Wratislav

The Easter Egg

Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped

The Music on the Hill

The Story of St. Vespaluus

The Way to the Dairy

The Peace Offering

The Peace of Mowsle Barton

The Talking-Out of Tarrington

The Hounds of Fate

The Recessional

A Matter of Sentiment

The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope

“Ministers of Grace”

The Remoulding of Groby Lington

Beasts and Super-Beasts

The She-Wolf

Laura

The Boar-Pig

The Brogue

The Hen

The Open Window

The Treasure-Ship

The Cobweb

The Lull

The Unkindest Blow

The Romancers

The Schartz-Metterklume Method

The Seventh Pullet

The Blind Spot

Dusk

A Touch of Realism

Cousin Teresa

The Yarkand Manner

The Byzantine Omelette

The Feast of Nemesis

The Dreamer

The Quince Tree

The Forbidden Buzzards

The Stake

Clovis on Parental Responsibilities

A Holiday Task

The Stalled Ox

The Story-Teller

A Defensive Diamond

The Elk

“Down Pens”

The Name-Day

The Lumber-Room

Fur

The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat

On Approval

The Toys of Peace

The Toys of Peace

Louise

Tea

The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh

The Wolves of Cernogratz

Louis

The Guests

The Penance

The Phantom Luncheon

A Bread and Butter Miss

Bertie's Christmas Eve

Forewarned

The Interlopers

Quail Seed

Canossa

The Threat

Excepting Mrs. Pentherby

Mark

The Hedgehog

The Mappined Life

Fate

The Bull

Morlvera

Shock Tactics

The Seven Cream Jugs

The Occasional Garden

The Sheep

The Oversight

Hyacinth

The Image of the Lost Soul

The Purple of the Balkan Kings

The Cupboard of the Yesterdays

For the Duration of the War

The Square Egg

The Square Egg

Birds on the Western Front

The Gala Programme

The Infernal Parliament

The Achievement of the Cat

The Old Town of Pskoff

Clovis on the Alleged Romance of Business

The Comments on Moung Ka

The Complete Short Stories

Reginald
REGINALD

I
DID
it–I should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go to the McKillops' garden-party against his will.

We all make mistakes occasionally. “They know you're here, and they'll think it so funny if you don't go. And I want particularly to be in with Mrs. McKillop just now.”

“I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a prospective wife for Wumples—or a husband, is it?” (Reginald has a magnificent scorn for details, other than sartorial.) “And I am expected to undergo social martyrdom to suit the connubial exigencies—”

“Reginald! It's nothing of the kind, only I'm sure Mrs. McKillop would be pleased if I brought you. Young men of your brilliant attractions are rather at a premium at her garden-parties.”

“Should be at a premium in heaven,” remarked Reginald complacently.

“There will be very few of you there, if that is what you mean.
But seriously, there won't be any great strain upon your powers of endurance; I promise you that you shan't have to play croquet, or talk to the Archdeacon's wife, or do anything that is likely to bring on physical prostration. You can just wear your sweetest clothes and a moderately amiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the appetite of a
blasé
parrot. Nothing more is demanded of you.”

Reginald shut his eyes. “There will be the exhaustingly up-todate young women who will ask me if I have seen
San Toy;
a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee —the historic event, not the horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the Allies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it.”

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