Beasts and Super-Beasts

Beasts and Super-Beasts

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Beasts and Super-Beasts, by Saki
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Beasts and Super-Beasts
Author: Saki
Release Date: April 19, 2005 [eBook #269]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEASTS
AND SUPER-BEASTS***

Transcribed from the 1914 John Lane, The Bodley Head edition by
David Price, email [email protected]

BEASTS AND SUPER-BEASTS
AUTHOR'S NOTE
"The Open Window," "The Schartz-Metterklume Method," and "Clovis

on Parental Responsibilities," originally appeared in the Westminster
Gazette, "The Elk" in the Bystander, and the remaining stories in the
Morning Post. To the Editors of these papers I am indebted for their
courtesy in allowing me to reprint them.
H. H. M.

THE SHE-WOLF
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-in-trade 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 pre-eminence in one or
other of those professions, and he was not disposed to shun such
publicity as might fall to his share. Esoteric forces and unusual powers
figured largely in whatever conversation he or his aunt had a share in,
and his own performances, past and potential, were the subject of
mysterious hints and dark avowals.
"I wish you would turn me into a wolf, Mr. Bilsiter," said his hostess at
luncheon the day after his arrival.
"My dear Mary," said Colonel Hampton, "I never knew you had a
craving in that direction."
"A she-wolf, of course," continued Mrs. Hampton; "it would be too
confusing to change one's sex as well as one's species at a moment's
notice."
"I don't think one should jest on these subjects," said Leonard.
"I'm not jesting, I'm quite serious, I assure you. Only don't do it to- day;
we have only eight available bridge players, and it would break up one
of our tables. To-morrow we shall be a larger party. To-morrow night,
after dinner--"
"In our present imperfect understanding of these hidden forces I think
one should approach them with humbleness rather than mockery,"
observed Leonard, with such severity that the subject was forthwith
dropped.

Clovis Sangrail had sat unusually silent during the discussion on the
possibilities of Siberian Magic; after lunch he side-tracked Lord
Pabham into the comparative seclusion of the billiard-room and
delivered himself