The Complete Works of Saki (Illustrated). Saki

the dress circle at His Majesty’s, and she began at once about the incident of the Chow dog in the bathroom, which she insisted must be struck out. We had to argue it in a disjointed fashion, because some of the people wanted to listen to the play, and Miriam takes nines in voices. They had to stop her playing in the ‘Macaws’ Hockey Club because you could hear what she thought when her shins got mixed up in a scrimmage for half a mile on a still day. They are called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellow costumes, but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam’s language. I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I had got it a Spitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was firm. She megaphoned back two minutes later, ‘You promised you would never mention it; don’t you ever keep a promise?’ When people had stopped glaring in our direction, I replied that I’d as soon think of keeping white mice. I saw her tearing little bits out of her programme for a minute or two, and then she leaned back and snorted, ‘You’re not the boy I took you for,’ as though she were an eagle arriving at Olympus with the wrong Ganymede. That was her last audible remark, but she went on tearing up her programme and scattering the pieces around her, till one of her neighbours asked with immense dignity whether she should send for a wastepaper basket. I didn’t stay for the last act.”

      “Then there is Mrs.—oh, I never can remember her name; she lives in a street that the cabmen have never heard of, and is at home on Wednesdays. She frightened me horribly once at a private view by saying mysteriously, ‘I oughtn’t to be here, you know; this is one of my days.’ I thought she meant that she was subject to periodical outbreaks and was expecting an attack at any moment. So embarrassing if she had suddenly taken it into her head that she was Cesar Borgia or St. Elizabeth of Hungary. That sort of thing would make one unpleasantly conspicuous even at a private view. However, she merely meant to say that it was Wednesday, which at the moment was incontrovertible. Well, she’s on quite a different tack to the Klopstock. She doesn’t visit anywhere very extensively, and, of course, she’s awfully keen for me to drag in an incident that occurred at one of the Beauwhistle garden-parties, when she says she accidentally hit the shins of a Serene Somebody or other with a croquet mallet and that he swore at her in German. As a matter of fact, he went on discoursing on the Gordon-Bennett affair in French. (I never can remember if it’s a new submarine or a divorce. Of course, how stupid of me!) To be disagreeably exact, I fancy she missed him by about two inches—over-anxiousness, probably—but she likes to think she hit him. I’ve felt that way with a partridge which I always imagine keeps on flying strong, out of false pride, till it’s the other side of the hedge. She said she could tell me everything she was wearing on the occasion. I said I didn’t want my book to read like a laundry list, but she explained that she didn’t mean those sort of things.”

      “And there’s the Chilworth boy, who can be charming as long as he’s content to be stupid and wear what he’s told to; but he gets the idea now and then that he’d like to be epigrammatic, and the result is like watching a rook trying to build a nest in a gale. Since he got wind of the book, he’s been persecuting me to work in something of his about the Russians and the Yalu Peril, and is quite sulky because I won’t do it.”

      “Altogether, I think it would be rather a brilliant inspiration if you were to suggest a fortnight in Paris.”

      Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches

       Table of Contents

       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

      Reginald In Russia

       Table of Contents

      REGINALD sat in a corner of the Princess's salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II.

      He classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that looks as if it habitually went out to feed hens in the rain.

      Her name was Olga; she kept what she hoped and believed to be a fox-terrier, and professed what she thought were Socialist opinions. It is not necessary to be called Olga if you are a Russian Princess; in fact, Reginald knew quite a number who were called Vera; but the fox-terrier and the Socialism are essential.

      "The Countess Lomshen keeps a bull-dog," said the Princess suddenly. "In England is it more chic to have a bull-dog than a fox-terrier?"

      Reginald threw his mind back over the canine fashions of the last ten years and gave an evasive answer.

      "Do you think her handsome, the Countess Lomshen?" asked the Princess.

      Reginald thought the Countess's complexion suggested an exclusive diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He said