[p. 127]
‘Tea-time tales’
After E. du Perron
I
One day a man put a bullet through his head.
These were the circumstances:
The man was big and strong.
He occupied a large number of honorary positions.
He was president of a politico-financial society,
vice-president-secretary of a purely commercial enterprise,
patron of all the undergraduate clubs,
in a word, he believed that every member of society should make
himself useful, and that even poets can succour over-tamed
Prime Ministers.
One morning towards half past nine a friend found him dead.
He had telephoned to this friend towards 8.45, excusing himself for
the earliness of the call, but praying him therewithal with some
insistance to drop in.
He was seated at his desk, dead, in the classic pose.
And on the desk for the friend to find was a pocket-book full of
observations:
a large enveloppe with five seals containing a report with all the
necessary supplements on the present state of the politico-
financial society;
a large enveloppe with three seals, containing indications as to the
present and future for his successor in the purely commercial
enterprise;
his will, in which neither his wife, nor his off-spring, nor any
servant, nor,
a single undergraduate club, was forgotten;
[p. 128]
his dentist’s bill paid, and the money for the rent,
stamps included, up to the end of the quarter;
yet another sheet of paper, containing for the friend instructions
(and therewithal addresses and costs) as to his funeral, which
was to be over at latest at ten past three that very day,
and his pince-nez and his revolver with only one used cartridge.
And (later was this known)
the day of his death, a distant friend learnt the news,
penned by his own hand and posted twenty-eight days in advance.
So that, in truth,
it was rather a singular case.
[p. 129]
II
And one day, another man, too, put a bullet through his head.
But he was sickly and neurasthenic,
and could not sleep at night,
and in the morning had to choke down his food,
and soon wearied of seeing people, etc.,
and so, one day,
this man, too, wrote a letter to a friend, but he scribbled it in haste
and forgot to seal it down,
and went out carrying a fire-arm.
But outside the day was fine,
for the little birds twittered
and the fair sun shone,
and the young women looked so pretty:
so that the man telephoned to his hostess to ask her to tear up the
letter without reading it.
But she shrieked into the ‘phone
‘Lawkadaisy, Sir! You!’
and fainted.
So that he supposed she had already read the letter,
and made for the country;
and there, probably with a sigh,
in the brilliant sunlight, he killed himself.
And that was also rather a singular case.
E. Blackett
