The Square Egg, and Other Sketches, by Saki

The East Wing: A Tragedy in the Manner of the Discursive Dramatists

“How well he reads our sex,” murmured Mrs Gramplain, “and yet how badly he plays bridge!”

Mrs. Pendercoet’s Lost Identity: A Tragedy of the Chelsea Arts Club Ball

“There is one character in fiction one hears no end of, but no one has ever seen her represented in portrait or in the flesh.”

The Optimist

“Once again Duncombe experienced the uncomfortable certainty of being face to face with a tragedy whose nature he could not guess at.”

Camels

“The camel is old—horribly, mustily old—and it is difficult to conceive that it has ever been anything else.”

A Shot in the Dark

“‘I laid a trap for you; I told you that I had never met Mrs. Saltpen-Jago. As a matter of fact I met her at lunch on Monday last. She is a pronounced blonde.’”

A Sacrifice to Necessity

“‘It seems there is just one way out of the tangle. He’s inclined to be amorous.’”

A Housing Problem – The Solution of an Insoluble Dilemma

“‘We can’t keep shifting Mr. Chermbacon backwards and forwards as though he was the regulator of an erratic clock.’”

The Almanack

“‘As your mother says, you are a mass of selfishness.’”

The Holy War

“Yealmton and his wife waged a politely reticent warfare; it was a struggle which Thirza knew she must ultimately win, because she was fighting for existence.”

The Pond

“How long would she struggle in those unfathomed weed-grown depths before she lay as picturesquely still as the drowned heroine of her tale-weavings?”

The Comments of Moung Ka

“In Burma it is possible to be a politician without ceasing to be a philosopher.”

Clovis on the Alleged Romance of Business

“Most of those terms are probably wrong, but a little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.”

The Old Town of Pskoff

“To the average modern Russian a desire to visit Pskoff is an inexplicable mental freak on the part of a foreigner who wishes to see something of the country he is living

The Achievement of the Cat

“It is, indeed, no small triumph to have combined the untrammelled liberty of primeval savagery with the luxury which only a highly developed civilization can command.”

The Infernal Parliament

“Bidderdale’s attention was caught by an item on a loose sheet of agenda paper: ‘Vote on account of special Hells.’”

The Gala Programme

“It takes all sorts to make a sex.”

Birds on the Western Front

“The lark would suddenly dash skyward and pour forth a song of ecstatic jubilation that sounded horribly forced and insincere.”

The Square Egg - A Badger’s-Eye View of the War Mud in the Trenches

“Much more to be thought about than the enemy over yonder or the war all over Europe is the mud of the moment.”