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Toys of Peace-Part20_H.H.Munro(Saki)(1870-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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flying over his shoulder, so that she fell into the road just behind

the retrogressing wheel. With a soft, pleasant-sounding scrunch the



car went over the prostrate form, then it moved forward again with

another scrunch. The carriage moved off and left Bert and Emmeline



gazing in scared delight at a sorry mess of petrol-smeared velvet,

sawdust, and leopard skin, which was all that remained of the



hateful Morlvera. They gave a shrill cheer, and then raced away

shuddering from the scene of so much rapidly enacted tragedy.



Later that afternoon, when they were engaged in the pursuit of

minnows by the waterside in St. James's Park, Emmeline said in a



solemn undertone to Bert -

"I've bin finking. Do you know oo 'e was? 'E was 'er little boy



wot she'd sent away to live wiv poor folks. 'E come back and done

that."



SHOCK TATICS

On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted



chair in Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting

stretch of park landscape, that blossomed suddenly into tropical



radiance as an expected figure appeared in the middle distance.

"Hullo, Bertie!" she exclaimed sedately, when the figure arrived at



the painted chair that was the nearest neighbour to her own, and

dropped into it eagerly, yet with a certain due regard for the set



of its trousers; "hasn't it been a perfect spring afternoon?"

The statement was a distinct untruth as far as Ella's own feelings



were concerned; until the arrival of Bertie the afternoon had been

anything but perfect.



Bertie made a suitable reply, in which a questioning note seemed to

hover.



"Thank you ever so much for those lovely handkerchiefs," said Ella,

answering the unspoken question; "they were just what I've been



wanting. There's only one thing spoilt my pleasure in your gift,"

she added, with a pout.



"What was that?" asked Bertie anxiously, fearful that perhaps he had

chosen a size of handkerchief that was not within the correct



feminine limit.

"I should have liked to have written and thanked you for them as



soon as I got them," said Ella, and Bertie's sky clouded at once.

"You know what mother is," he protested; "she opens all my letters,



and if she found I'd been giving presents to any one there'd have

been something to talk about for the next fortnight."



"Surely, at the age of twenty--" began Ella.

"I'm not twenty till September," interrupted Bertie.



"At the age of nineteen years and eight months," persisted Ella,

"you might be allowed to keep your correspondence private to



yourself."

"I ought to be, but things aren't always what they ought to be.



Mother opens every letter that comes into the house, whoever it's

for. My sisters and I have made rows about it time and again, but



she goes on doing it."

"I'd find some way to stop her if I were in your place," said Ella



valiantly, and Bertie felt that the glamour of his anxiously

deliberated present had faded away in the disagreeable restriction



that hedged round its acknowledgment.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Bertie's friend Clovis when they met



that evening at the swimming-bath.

"Why do you ask?" said Bertie.



"When you wear a look of tragic gloom in a swimming-bath," said

Clovis, "it's especially noticeable from the fact that you're



wearing very little else. Didn't she like the handkerchiefs?"

Bertie explained the situation.



"It is rather galling, you know," he added, "when a girl has a lot

of things she wants to write to you and can't send a letter except



by some roundabout, underhand way."

"One never realises one's blessings while one enjoys them," said



Clovis; "now I have to spend a considerableamount of ingenuity

inventing excuses for not having written to people."



"It's not a joking matter," said Bertie resentfully: "you wouldn't

find it funny if your mother opened all your letters."



"The funny thing to me is that you should let her do it."

"I can't stop it. I've argued about it--"



"You haven't used the right kind of argument, I expect. Now, if

every time one of your letters was opened you lay on your back on



the dining-table during dinner and had a fit, or roused the entire

family in the middle of the night to hear you recite one of Blake's



'Poems of Innocence,' you would get a far more respectfulhearing




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