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

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England

www.penguin.com

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

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.”