BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS - 36 Titles in One Edition. Saki, H. H. Munro. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Saki, H. H. Munro
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9788027243723
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       Saki, H. H. Munro

      BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS - 36 Titles in One Edition

      The She-Wolf, Laura, The Boar-Pig, The Brogue, The Hen, The Open Window, The Treasure-Ship, The Cobweb & more

      Published by

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      2018 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-272-4372-3

      Table of Contents

       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 She-Wolf

       Table of Contents

      Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find this world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an “unseen world” of their own experience or imagination — or invention. Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content to convince themselves, and do not vulgarise their beliefs by trying to convince other people. Leonard Bilsiter’s beliefs were for “the few,” that is to say, anyone who would listen to him.

      His dabblings in the unseen might not have carried him beyond the customary platitudes of the drawing-room visionary if accident had not reinforced his stock-intrade of mystical lore. In company with a friend, who was interested in a Ural mining concern, he had made a trip across Eastern Europe at a moment when the great Russian railway strike was developing from a threat to a reality; its outbreak caught him on the return journey, somewhere on the further side of Perm, and it was while waiting for a couple of days at a wayside station in a state of suspended locomotion that he made the acquaintance of a dealer in harness and metalware, who profitably whiled away the tedium of the long halt by initiating his English travelling companion in a fragmentary system of folk-lore that he had picked up from Trans–Baikal traders and natives. Leonard returned to his home circle garrulous about his Russian strike experiences, but oppressively reticent about certain dark mysteries, which he alluded to under the resounding title of Siberian Magic. The reticence wore off in a week or two under the influence of an entire lack of general curiosity, and Leonard began to make more detailed allusions to the enormous powers which this new esoteric force, to use his own description of it, conferred on the initiated few who knew how to wield it. His aunt, Cecilia Hoops, who loved sensation perhaps rather better than she loved the truth, gave him as clamorous an advertisement as anyone could wish for by retailing an account of how he had turned a vegetable marrow into a wood pigeon before her very eyes. As a manifestation of the possession of supernatural powers, the story was discounted in some quarters by the respect accorded to Mrs. Hoops’ powers of imagination.

      However divided opinion might be on the question of Leonard’s status as a wonderworker or a charlatan, he certainly arrived at Mary Hampton’s house-party with a reputation for preeminence in one or other of those professions, and he was not disposed to shun such publicity as