Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (143 page)

Knocker
was
usually
very
expansive
after
a
good
day,
but
that
afternoon
he
took
no
part
in
the
conversation,
with
the
exception
of
an occasional
grunt
when
a
remark
was
made
to
him.
Try
as
he
would he
could
not
keep
his
thoughts
away
from
the
old
man.
It
was
the memory
of
the
laugh
that
remained
with
him
most
vividly.
He
could still
feel
that
queer
sensation
down
his
spine.
.
.
.

On
a
sudden
impulse
he
took
out
the
paper,
which
was
still
in
his pocket.
He
had
no
real
interest
in
news,
as
such,
for
racing
absorbed the
whole
of
his
very
limited
imagination.
As
far
as
he
could
tell
from a
casual
inspection
it
was
a
very
ordinary
sort
of
paper.
He
made
up his
mind
to
get
another
in
town
and
compare
the
two
in
order
to
see if
the
old
man
had
spoken
the
truth.
Not
that
it
mattered
very
much, he
assured
himself.

Suddenly
his
incurious
glance
was
held.
A
paragraph
in
the
stop-press
column
had
caught
his"
eye.
An
exclamation
burst
from
him.

"Death
in
race-train,"
the
paragraph
was
headed.
Knocker's
heart was
pumping,
but
he
read
on
mechanically:
"Mr.
Martin
Thompson, a
well-known
racing
man,
died
this
afternoon
as
he
was
returning from
Gatwick."

He
got
no
further;
the
paper
fell
from
his
limp
fingers
on
to
the floor
of
the
carriage.

"Look
at
Knocker,"
someone
said.
"He's
ill
.
.
."

He
was
breathing
heavily
and
with
difficulty.

"Stop
.
.
.
stop
the
train,"
he
gasped,
and
strove
to
rise
and
lurch towards
the
communications
cord.

"Steady
on,
Knocker,"
one
of
them
said,
and
grasped
his
arm.
"You sit
down,
old
chap
.
.
.
mustn't
pull
that
darned
thing.
.
.
."

He
sat
down
...
or
rather
collapsed
into
his
seat.
His
head
fell forward.

They
forced
whisky
between
his
lips,
but
it
was
of
no
avail. "He's
dead,"
came
the
awestruck
voice
of
the
man
who
held him.

No
one
noticed
the
paper
on
the
floor.
In
the
general
upset
it had
been
kicked
under
the
seat,
and
it
is
not
possible
to
say
what became
of
it.
Perhaps
it
was
swept
up
by
the
cleaners
at
Waterloo.

Perhaps
.
.
.

No
one
knows.

From
On a Chinese Screen^
by W. Somerset Maugham, copyright
1939,
by Doubleday & Company, Inc., reprinted with special permission of
the author.

The Taipan

By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

NO
ONE
KNEW
BETTER
THAN
HE
THAT
HE
WAS
AN
IMPORTANT
PERSON.

He
was
number
one
in
not
the
least
important
branch
of
the
most important
English
firm
in
China.
He
had
worked
his
way
up
through solid
ability
and
he
looked
back
with
a
faint
smile
at
the
callow
clerk who
had
come
out
to
China
thirty
years
before.
When
he
remembered
the
modest
home
he
had
come
from,
a
little
red
house
in
a
long row
of
little
red
houses,
in
Barnes,
a
suburb
which,
aiming
desperately at
the
genteel,
achieves
only
a
sordid
melancholy,
and
compared
it with
the
magnificent
stone
mansion,
with
its
wide
verandahs
and spacious
rooms,
which
was
at
once
the
office
of
the
company
and
his own
residence,
he
chuckled
with
satisfaction.
He
had
come
a
long way
since
then.
He
thought
of
the
high
tea
to
which
he
sat
down when
he
came
home
from
school
(he
was
at
St.
Paul's),
with
his father
and
mother
and
his
two
sisters,
a
slice
of
cold
meat,
a
great deal
of
bread
and
butter
and
plenty
of
milk
in
his
tea,
everybody
helping
himself,
and
then
he
thought
of
the
state
in
which
now
he
ate his
evening
meal.
He
always
dressed
and
whether
he
was
alone
or not
he
expected
the
three
boys
to
wait
at
table.
His
number
one
boy knew
exactly
what
he
liked
and
he
never
had
to
bother
himself
with the
details
of
housekeeping;
but
he
always
had
a
set
dinner
with
soup and
fish,
entree,
roast,
sweet
and
savoury,
so
that
if
he
wanted
to
ask anyone
in
at
the
last
moment
he
could.
He
liked
his
food
and
he
did
not see why when he was alone he should have
less good a dinner than when he had a guest.