The Talking-Out of Tarrington by Saki
Posted at 10:47 PM, 1/21/2008
"Heavens!" exclaimed the aunt of Clovis wow gold , "here's some one I know bearing down on us. I can't remember his name, but he lunched with us once in Town. Tarrington - yes, that's it. He's heard of the picnic I'm giving for the Princess, and he'll cling to me like a lifebelt till I give him an invitation; then he'll ask if he may bring all his wives and mothers and sisters with him. That's the worst of these small watering-places; one can't escape from anybody."
"I'll fight a rearguard action for you if you like to do a bolt now," volunteered Clovis; "you've a clear ten yards start if you don't lose time."
The aunt of Clovis responded gamely to the suggestion, and churned away like a Nile steamer, with a long brown ripple of Pekingese spaniel trailing in her wake.
"Pretend you don't know him," was her parting advice, tinged with the reckless courage of the non-combatant.
The next moment the overtures of an affably disposed gentleman were being received by Clovis with a "silent-upon-a-peak-in-Darien" stare which denoted an absence of all previous acquaintance with the object scrutinized.
"I expect you don't know me with my moustache," said the new-comer; "I've only grown it during the last two months."
"On the contrary," said Clovis, "the moustache is the only thing about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt certain that I had met it somewhere before."
"My name is Tarrington," resumed the candidate for recognition.
"A very useful kind of name," said Clovis; "with a name of that sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in particular heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you were to raise a troop of light horse in a moment of national emergency, 'Tarrington's Light Horse' would sound quite appropriate and pulse-quickening; whereas if you were called Spoopin, for instance, the thing would be out of the question. No one, even in a moment of national emergency, could possibly belong to Spoopin's Horse."
The new-comer smiled weakly, as one who is not to be put off by mere flippancy, and began again with patient persistence:
"I think you ought to remember my name--"
Related Articles:
- A Lifestyle by Fernando Sorrentino
- Wratislav by Saki
- Tobermory by Saki
- The Unrest-Cure by Saki
- The Toys Of Peace by Saki
- The Threat by Saki
- The Talking-Out of Tarrington by Saki
- The Story of St. Vespaluus by Saki
- The Stampeding of Lady Bastable by Saki
- The Sheep by Saki
- The She Wolf by Saki
- The Seven Cream Jugs by Saki
- The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope by Saki
- The Remoulding of Groby Lington by Saki
- The Recessional by Saki