33 лучших юмористических рассказа на английском / 33 Best Humorous Short Stories

‘“You admit the Chinese, eh?” I queried.

‘“Not always,” he replied. “But Con was such a good fellow they hadn’t the heart to keep him out; but you see, Austin, what a lot of fine fellows there are in it.”

‘“Yes, it’s a magnificent list, and I should say they made a pretty interesting set of fellows to hear talk,” I put in.

‘“Well, rather,” Hawley replied. “I wish you could have heard a debate between Shakespeare and Caesar on the resolution, ‘The Pen is mightier than the Sword;’ it was immense.”

‘“I should think it might have been,” I said. “Which won?”

‘“The sword party. They were the best fighters; though on the merits of the argument Shakespeare was ’way ahead.”

‘“If I thought I’d stand a chance of seeing spooks like that, I think I’d give up Coney Island and go with you,” I said.

‘“Well,” replied Hawley, “that’s just the kind of a chance you do stand. They’ll all be there to-night, and as this is ladies’ day, you might meet Lucretia Borgia, Cleopatra, and a few other feminine apparitions of considerable note.”

‘“That settles it. I am yours for the rest of the day,” I said, and so we adjourned to the rooms of the Ghost Club.

‘These rooms were in a beautiful house on Fifth Avenue; the number of the house you will find on consulting the court records. I have forgotten it. It was a large, broad, brown-stone structure, and must have been over one hundred and fifty feet in depth. Such fittings I never saw before; everything was in the height of luxury, and I am quite certain that among beings to whom money is a measure of possibility no such magnificence is attainable. The paintings on the walls were by the most famous artists of our own and other days. The rugs on the superbly polished floors were worth fortunes, not only for their exquisite beauty, but also for their extreme rarity. In keeping with these were the furniture and bric-a-brac. In short, my dear sir, I had never dreamed of anything so dazzlingly, so superbly magnificent as that apartment into which I was ushered by the ghost of my quondam friend Hawley Hicks.

‘At first I was speechless with wonder, which seemed to amuse Hicks very much.

‘“Pretty fine, eh?” he said, with a short laugh.

‘“Well,” I replied, in a moment, “considering that you can get along without money, and that all the resources of the world are at your disposal, it is not more than half bad. Have you a library?”

‘I was always fond of books,’ explained 5010 in parenthesis to me, ‘and so was quite anxious to see what the club of ghosts could show in the way of literary treasures. Imagine my surprise when Hawley informed me that the club had no collection of the sort to appeal to the bibliophile.

‘“No,” he answered, “we have no library.”

‘“Rather strange,” I said, “that a club to which men like Shakespeare, Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, and other deceased literati belong should be deficient in that respect.”

‘“Not at all,” said he. “Why should we want books when we have the men themselves to tell their tales to us? Would you give a rap to possess a set of Shakespeare if William himself would sit down and rattle off the whole business to you any time you chose to ask him to do it? Would you follow Scott’s printed narratives through their devious and tedious periods if Sir Walter in spirit would come to you on demand, and tell you all the old stories over again in a tenth part of the time it would take you to read the introduction to one of them?”

‘“I fancy not,” I said. “Are you in such luck?”

‘“I am,” said Hawley; “only personally I never send for Scott or Shakespeare. I prefer something lighter than either – Douglas Jerrold or Marryat. But best of all, I like to sit down and hear Noah swap animal stories with Davy Crockett. Noah’s the brightest man of his age in the club. Adam’s kind of slow.”

‘“How about Solomon?” I asked, more to be flippant than with any desire for information. I was much amused to hear Hawley speak of these great spirits as if he and they were chums of long standing.

‘“Solomon has resigned from the club,” he said, with a sad sigh. “He was a good fellow, Solomon was, but he thought he knew it all until old Doctor Johnson got hold of him, and then he knuckled under. It’s rather rough for a man to get firmly established in his belief that he is the wisest creature going, and then, after a couple of thousand years, have an Englishman come along and tell him things he never knew before, especially the way Sam Johnson delivers himself of his opinions. Johnson never cared whom he hurt, you know, and when he got after Solomon, he did it with all his might.”’

‘I wonder if Boswell was there?’ I ventured, interrupting 5010 in his extraordinary narrative for an instant.

‘Yes, he was there,’ returned the prisoner. ‘I met him later in the evening; but he isn’t the spook he might be. He never had much spirit anyhow, and when he died he had to leave his nose behind him, and that settled him.’

‘Of course,’ I answered. ‘Boswell with no nose to stick into other people’s affairs would have been like Othello with Desdemona left out. But go on. What did you do next?’

‘Well,’ 5010 resumed, ‘after I’d looked about me, and drunk my fill of the magnificence on every hand, Hawley took me into the music-room, and introduced me to Mozart and Wagner and a few other great composers. In response to my request, Wagner played an impromptu version of “Daisy Bell” on the organ. It was great; not much like “Daisy Bell,” of course; more like a collision between a cyclone and a simoom in a tin-plate mining camp, in fact, but, nevertheless, marvellous. I tried to remember it afterwards, and jotted down a few notes, but I found the first bar took up seven sheets of fool’s-cap, and so gave it up. Then Mozart tried his hand on a banjo for my amusement, Mendelssohn sang a half-dozen of his songs without words, and then Gottschalk played one of Poe’s weird stories on the piano.

‘Then Carlyle came in, and Hawley introduced me to him. He was a gruff old gentleman, and seemingly anxious to have Froude become an eligible, and I judged from the rather fierce manner in which he handled a club he had in his hand, that there were one or two other men of prominence still living he was anxious to meet. Dickens, too, was desirous of a two-minute interview with certain of his at present purely mortal critics; and, between you and me, if the wink that Bacon gave Shakespeare when I spoke of Ignatius Donnelly meant anything, the famous cryptogrammarian will do well to drink a bottle of the elixir of life every morning before breakfast, and stave off dissolution as long as he can. There’s no getting around the fact, sir,’ Surrennes added, with a significant shake of the head, ‘that the present leaders of literary thought with critical tendencies are going to have the hardest kind of a time when they cross the river and apply for admission to the Ghost Club. I don’t ask for any better fun than that of watching from a safe distance the initiation ceremonies of the next dozen who go over. And as an Englishman, sir, who thoroughly believes in and admires Lord Wolseley, if I were out of jail and able to do it, I’d write him a letter, and warn him that he would better revise his estimates of certain famous soldiers no longer living if he desires to find rest in that mysterious other world whither he must eventually betake himself. They’ve got their swords sharpened for him, and he’ll discover an instance when he gets over there in which the sword is mightier than the pen.

‘After that, Hawley took me up-stairs and introduced me to the spirit of Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom I passed about twenty-five minutes talking over his victories and defeats. He told me he never could understand how a man like Wellington came to defeat him at Waterloo, and added that he had sounded the Iron Duke on the subject, and found him equally ignorant.

‘So the afternoon and evening passed. I met quite a number of famous ladies – Catherine, Marie Louise, Josephine, Queen Elizabeth, and others. Talked architecture with Queen Anne, and was surprised to learn that she never saw a Queen Anne cottage. I took Peg Woffington down to supper, and altogether had a fine time of it.’

‘But, my dear Surrennes,’ I put in at this point, ‘I fail to see what this has to do with your defence in your trial for stealing spoons.’

‘I am coming to that,’ said 5010, sadly. ‘I dwell on the moments passed at the club because they were the happiest of my life, and am loath to speak of what followed, but I suppose I must. It was all due to Queen Isabella that I got into trouble. Peg Woffington presented me to Queen Isabella in the supper-room, and while her majesty and I were talking, I spoke of how beautiful everything in the club was, and admired especially a half-dozen old Spanish spoons upon the side-board. When I had done this, the Queen called to Ferdinand, who was chatting with Columbus on the other side of the room, to come to her, which he did with alacrity. I was presented to the King, and then my troubles began.

‘“Mr. Surrennes admires our spoons, Ferdinand,” said the Queen.

‘The King smiled, and turning to me observed, “Sir, they are yours. Er – waiter, just do these spoons up and give them to Mr. Surrennes.”

‘Of course,’ said 5010, ‘I protested against this; whereupon the King looked displeased.

‘“It is a rule of our club, sir, as well as an old Spanish custom, for us to present to our guests anything that they may happen openly to admire. You are surely sufficiently well acquainted with the etiquette of club life to know that guests may not with propriety decline to be governed by the regulations of the club whose hospitality they are enjoying.”

‘“I certainly am aware of that, my dear King,” I replied, “and of course I accept the spoons with exceeding deep gratitude. My remonstrance was prompted solely by my desire to explain to you that I was unaware of any such regulation, and to assure you that when I ventured to inform your good wife that the spoons had excited my sincerest admiration, I was not hinting that it would please me greatly to be accounted their possessor.”

‘“Your courtly speech, sir,” returned the King, with a low bow, “is ample assurance of your sincerity, and I beg that you will put the spoons in your pocket and say no more. They are yours. Verb. sap.”

‘I thanked the great Spaniard and said no more, pocketing the spoons with no little exultation, because, having always been a lover of the quaint and beautiful, I was glad to possess such treasures, though I must confess to some misgivings as to the possibility of their being unreal. Shortly after this episode I looked at my watch and discovered that it was getting well on towards eleven o’clock, and I sought out Hawley for the purpose of thanking him for a delightful evening and of taking my leave. I met him in the hall talking to Euripides on the subject of the amateur stage in the United States. What they said I did not stop to hear, but offering my hand to Hawley informed him of my intention to depart.

‘“Well, old chap,” he said, affectionately, “I’m glad you came. It’s always a pleasure to see you, and I hope we may meet again some time soon.” And then, catching sight of my bundle, he asked, “What have you there?”

‘I informed him of the episode in the supper-room, and fancied I perceived a look of annoyance on his countenance.

‘“I didn’t want to take them, Hawley,” I said; “but Ferdinand insisted.”

‘“Oh, it’s all right!” returned Hawley. “Only I’m sorry! You’d better get along home with them as quickly as you can and say nothing; and, above all, don’t try to sell them.”

‘“But why?” I asked. “I’d much prefer to leave them here if there is any question of the propriety of my —”

‘Here,’ continued 5010, ‘Hawley seemed to grow impatient, for he stamped his foot angrily, and bade me go at once or there might be trouble. I proceeded to obey him, and left the house instanter, slamming the door somewhat angrily behind me. Hawley’s unceremonious way of speeding his parting guest did not seem to me to be exactly what I had a right to expect at the time. I see now what his object was, and acquit him of any intention to be rude, though I must say if I ever catch him again, I’ll wring an explanation from him for having introduced me into such bad company.

‘As I walked down the steps,’ said 5010, ‘the chimes of the neighboring church were clanging out the hour of eleven. I stopped on the last step to look for a possible hansom-cab, when a portly gentleman accompanied by a lady started to mount the stoop. The man eyed me narrowly for a moment, and then, sending the lady up the steps, he turned to me and said,

‘“What are you doing here?”

‘“I’ve just left the club” I answered. “It’s all right. I was Hawley Hicks’s guest. Whose ghost are you?”

‘“What the deuce are you talking about?” he asked, rather gruffly, much to my surprise and discomfort.

‘“I tried to give you a civil answer to your question,” I returned, indignantly.

‘“I guess you’re crazy – or a thief,” he rejoined.

‘“See here, friend,” I put in, rather impressively, “just remember one thing. You are talking to a gentleman, and I don’t take remarks of that sort from anybody, spook or otherwise. I don’t care if you are the ghost of the Emperor Nero, if you give me any more of your impudence I’ll dissipate you to the four quarters of the universe – see?”

‘Then he grabbed me and shouted for the police, and I was painfully surprised to find that instead of coping with a mysterious being from another world, I had two hundred and ten pounds of flesh and blood to handle. The populace began to gather. The million and a half of small boys of whom I have already spoken – mostly street gamins, owing to the lateness of the hour – sprang up from all about us. Hansom-cab drivers, attracted by the noise of our altercation, drew up to the sidewalk to watch developments, and then, after the usual fifteen or twenty minutes, the blue-coat emissary of justice appeared.

‘“Phat’s dthis?” he asked.

‘“I have detected this man leaving my house in a suspicious manner,” said my adversary. “I have reason to suspect him of thieving.”

‘“Your house!” I ejaculated, with fine scorn. “I’ve got you there; this is the house of the New York Branch of the Ghost Club. If you want it proved,” I added, turning to the policeman, “ring the bell, and ask.”

‘“Oi t’ink dthat’s a fair prophosition,” observed the policeman. “Is the motion siconded?”

‘“Oh, come now!” cried my captor. “Stop this nonsense, or I’ll report you to the department. This is my house, and has been for twenty years. I want this man searched.”

‘“Oi hov no warrant permithin’ me to invistigate the contints ov dthe gintlemon’s clothes,” returned the intelligent member of the force. “But av yez ‘ll take yer solemn alibi dthat yez hov rayson t’ belave the gintlemon has worked ony habeas corpush business on yure propherty, oi’ll jug dthe blag-yard.’

‘“I’ll be responsible,” said the alleged owner of the house. “Take him to the station.”

‘“I refuse to move,” I said.

‘“Oi’ll not carry yez,” said the policeman, “and oi’d advoise ye to furnish yure own locomotion. Av ye don’t, oi’ll use me club. Dthot’s th’ ounly waa yez ‘ll git dthe ambulanch.”

‘“Oh, well, if you insist,” I replied, “of course I’ll go. I have nothing to fear.”

‘You see,’ added 5010 to me, in parenthesis, ‘the thought suddenly flashed across my mind that if all was as my captor said, if the house was really his and not the Ghost Club’s, and if the whole thing was only my fancy, the spoons themselves would turn out to be entirely fanciful; so I was all right – or at least I thought I was. So we trotted along to the police station. On the way I told the policeman the whole story, which impressed him so that he crossed himself a half-dozen times, and uttered numerous ejaculatory prayers – “Maa dthe shaints presharve us,” and “Hivin hov mershy,” and others of a like import.

‘“Waz dthe ghosht ov Dan O’Connell dthere?” he asked.

‘“Yes,” I replied. “I shook hands with it.”

‘“Let me shaak dthot hand,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, and then he whispered in my ear: “Oi belave yez to be innoshunt; but av yez ain’t, for the love of Dan, oi’ll let yez eshcape.”

‘“Thanks, old fellow,” I replied. “But I am innocent of wrong-doing, as I can prove.”

‘Alas!’ sighed the convict, ‘it was not to be so. When I arrived at the station-house, I was dumfounded to learn that the spoons were all too real. I told my story to the sergeant, and pointed to the monogram, “G.C.,” on the spoons as evidence that my story was correct; but even that told against me, for the alleged owner’s initials were G.C. – his name I withhold – and the monogram only served to substantiate his claim to the spoons. Worst of all, he claimed that he had been robbed on several occasions before this, and by midnight I found myself locked up in a dirty cell to await trial.

‘I got a lawyer, and, as I said before, even he declined to believe my story, and suggested the insanity dodge. Of course I wouldn’t agree to that. I tried to get him to subpoena Ferdinand and Isabella and Euripides and Hawley Hicks in my behalf, and all he’d do was to sit there and shake his head at me. Then I suggested going up to the Metropolitan Opera-house some fearful night as the clock struck twelve, and try to serve papers on Wagner’s spook – all of which he treated as unworthy of a moment’s consideration. Then I was tried, convicted, and sentenced to live in this beastly hole; but I have one strong hope to buoy me up, and if that is realized, I’ll be free to-morrow morning.’

‘What is that?’ I asked.

‘Why,’ he answered, with a sigh, as the bell rang summoning him to his supper – ‘why, the whole horrid business has been so weird and uncanny that I’m beginning to believe it’s all a dream. If it is, why, I’ll wake up, and find myself at home in bed; that’s all. I’ve clung to that hope for nearly a year now, but it’s getting weaker every minute.’

‘Yes, 5010,’ I answered, rising and shaking him by the hand in parting; ‘that’s a mighty forlorn hope, because I’m pretty wide awake myself at this moment, and can’t be a part of your dream. The great pity is you didn’t try the insanity dodge.’

‘Tut!’ he answered. ‘That is the last resource of a weak mind.’

Ambrose Bierce

Curried Cow

My Aunt Patience, who tilled a small farm in the state of Michigan, had a favorite cow. This creature was not a good cow, nor a profitable one, for instead of devoting a part of her leisure to secretion of milk and production of veal she concentrated all her faculties on the study of kicking. She would kick all day and get up in the middle of the night to kick. She would kick at anything – hens, pigs, posts, loose stones, birds in the air and fish leaping out of the water; to this impartial and catholic-minded beef, all were equal – all similarly undeserving. Like old Timotheus, who ‘raised a mortal to the skies,’ was my Aunt Patience’s cow; though, in the words of a later poet than Dryden, she did it ‘more harder and more frequently.’ It was pleasing to see her open a passage for herself through a populous barnyard. She would flash out, right and left, first with one hind-leg and then with the other, and would sometimes, under favoring conditions, have a considerable number of domestic animals in the air at once.

Her kicks, too, were as admirable in quality as inexhaustible in quantity. They were incomparably superior to those of the untutored kine that had not made the art a life study – mere amateurs that kicked ‘by ear,’ as they say in music. I saw her once standing in the road, professedly fast asleep, and mechanically munching her cud with a sort of Sunday morning lassitude, as one munches one’s cud in a dream. Snouting about at her side, blissfully unconscious of impending danger and wrapped up in thoughts of his sweetheart, was a gigantic black hog – a hog of about the size and general appearance of a yearling rhinoceros. Suddenly, while I looked – without a visible movement on the part of the cow – with never a perceptible tremor of her frame, nor a lapse in the placid regularity of her chewing – that hog had gone away from there – had utterly taken his leave. But away toward the pale horizon a minute black speck was traversing the empyrean with the speed of a meteor, and in a moment had disappeared, without audible report, beyond the distant hills. It may have been that hog.

Currying cows is not, I think, a common practice, even in Michigan; but as this one had never needed milking, of course she had to be subjected to some equivalent form of persecution; and irritating her skin with a currycomb was thought as disagreeable an attention as a thoughtful affection could devise. At least she thought it so; though I suspect her mistress really meant it for the good creature’s temporal advantage. Anyhow my aunt always made it a condition to the employment of a farm-servant that he should curry the cow every morning; but after just enough trials to convince himself that it was not a sudden spasm, nor a mere local disturbance, the man would always give notice of an intention to quit, by pounding the beast half-dead with some foreign body and then limping home to his couch. I don’t know how many men the creature removed from my aunt’s employ in this way, but judging from the number of lame persons in that part of the country, I should say a good many; though some of the lameness may have been taken at second-hand from the original sufferers by their descendants, and some may have come by contagion.

I think my aunt’s was a faulty system of agriculture. It is true her farm labor cost her nothing, for the laborers all left her service before any salary had accrued; but as the cow’s fame spread abroad through the several States and Territories, it became increasingly difficult to obtain hands; and, after all, the favorite was imperfectly curried. It was currently remarked that the cow had kicked the farm to pieces – a rude metaphor, implying that the land was not properly cultivated, nor the buildings and fences kept in adequate repair.

It was useless to remonstrate with my aunt: she would concede everything, amending nothing. Her late husband had attempted to reform the abuse in this manner, and had had the argument all his own way until he had remonstrated himself into an early grave; and the funeral was delayed all day, until a fresh undertaker could be procured, the one originally engaged having confidingly undertaken to curry the cow at the request of the widow.

Since that time my Aunt Patience had not been in the matrimonial market; the love of that cow had usurped in her heart the place of a more natural and profitable affection. But when she saw her seeds unsown, her harvests ungarnered, her fences overtopped with rank brambles and her meadows gorgeous with the towering Canada thistle she thought it best to take a partner.

When it transpired that my Aunt Patience intended wedlock there was intense popular excitement. Every adult single male became at once a marrying man. The criminal statistics of Badger county show that in that single year more marriages occurred than in any decade before or since. But none of them was my aunt’s. Men married their cooks, their laundresses, their deceased wives’ mothers, their enemies’ sisters – married whomsoever would wed; and any man who, by fair means or courtship, could not obtain a wife went before a justice of the peace and made an affidavit that he had some wives in Indiana. Such was the fear of being married alive by my Aunt Patience.

Now, where my aunt’s affection was concerned she was, as the reader will have already surmised, a rather determined woman; and the extraordinary marrying epidemic having left but one eligible male in all that county, she had set her heart upon that one eligible male; then she went and carted him to her home. He turned out to be a long Methodist parson, named Huggins.

Aside from his unconscionable length, the Rev. Berosus Huggins was not so bad a fellow, and was nobody’s fool. He was, I suppose, the most ill-favored mortal, however, in the whole northern half of America – thin, angular, cadaverous of visage and solemn out of all reason. He commonly wore a low-crowned black hat, set so far down upon his head as partly to eclipse his eyes and wholly obscure the ample glory of his ears. The only other visible article of his attire (except a brace of wrinkled cowskin boots, by which the word ‘polish’ would have been considered the meaningless fragment of a lost language) was a tight-fitting black frock-coat, preternaturally long in the waist, the skirts of which fell about his heels, sopping up the dew. This he always wore snugly buttoned from the throat downward. In this attire he cut a tolerably spectral figure. His aspect was so conspicuously unnatural and inhuman that whenever he went into a cornfield, the predatory crows would temporarily forsake their business to settle upon him in swarms, fighting for the best seats upon his person, by way of testifying their contempt for the weak inventions of the husbandman.

The day after the wedding my Aunt Patience summoned the Rev. Berosus to the council chamber, and uttered her mind to the following intent:

‘Now, Huggy, dear, I’ll tell you what there is to do about the place. First, you must repair all the fences, clearing out the weeds and repressing the brambles with a strong hand. Then you will have to exterminate the Canadian thistles, mend the wagon, rig up a plow or two, and get things into ship-shape generally. This will keep you out of mischief for the better part of two years; of course you will have to give up preaching, for the present. As soon as you have – O! I forgot poor Phœbe. She’ —

‘Mrs. Huggins,’ interrupted her solemn spouse, ‘I shall hope to be the means, under Providence, of effecting all needful reforms in the husbandry of this farm. But the sister you mention (I trust she is not of the world’s people) – have I the pleasure of knowing her? The name, indeed, sounds familiar, but’ —

‘Not know Phœbe!’ cried my aunt, with unfeigned astonishment; ‘I thought everybody in Badger knew Phœbe. Why, you will have to scratch her legs, every blessed morning of your natural life!’

‘I assure you, madam,’ rejoined the Rev. Berosus, with dignity, ‘it would yield me a hallowed pleasure to minister to the spiritual needs of sister Phœbe, to the extent of my feeble and unworthy ability; but, really, I fear the merely secular ministration of which you speak must be entrusted to abler and, I would respectfully suggest, female hands.’

‘Whyyy, youuu ooold, foooool!’ replied my aunt, spreading her eyes with unbounded amazement, ‘Phœbe is a cow!’

‘In that case,’ said the husband, with unruffled composure, ‘it will, of course, devolve upon me to see that her carnal welfare is properly attended to; and I shall be happy to bestow upon her legs such time as I may, without sin, snatch from my strife with Satan and the Canadian thistles.’

With that the Rev. Mr. Huggins crowded his hat upon his shoulders, pronounced a brief benediction upon his bride, and betook himself to the barn-yard.

Now, it is necessary to explain that he had known from the first who Phœbe was, and was familiar, from hearsay, with all her sinful traits. Moreover, he had already done himself the honor of making her a visit, remaining in the vicinity of her person, just out of range, for more than an hour and permitting her to survey him at her leisure from every point of the compass. In short, he and Phœbe had mutually reconnoitered and prepared for action.

Amongst the articles of comfort and luxury which went to make up the good parson’s dot, and which his wife had already caused to be conveyed to his new home, was a patent cast-iron pump, about seven feet high. This had been deposited near the barn-yard, preparatory to being set up on the planks above the barn-yard well. Mr. Huggins now sought out this invention and conveying it to its destination put it into position, screwing it firmly to the planks. He next divested himself of his long gaberdine and his hat, buttoning the former loosely about the pump, which it almost concealed, and hanging the latter upon the summit of the structure. The handle of the pump, when depressed, curved outwardly between the coat-skirts, singularly like a tail, but with this inconspicuous exception, any unprejudiced observer would have pronounced the thing Mr. Huggins, looking uncommonly well.

The preliminaries completed, the good man carefully closed the gate of the barnyard, knowing that as soon as Phœbe, who was campaigning in the kitchen garden, should note the precaution she would come and jump in to frustrate it, which eventually she did. Her master, meanwhile, had laid himself, coatless and hatless, along the outside of the close board fence, where he put in the time pleasantly, catching his death of cold and peering through a knot-hole.

At first, and for some time, the animal pretended not to see the figure on the platform. Indeed she had turned her back upon it directly she arrived, affecting a light sleep. Finding that this stratagem did not achieve the success that she had expected, she abandoned it and stood for several minutes irresolute, munching her cud in a half-hearted way, but obviously thinking very hard. Then she began nosing along the ground as if wholly absorbed in a search for something that she had lost, tacking about hither and thither, but all the time drawing nearer to the object of her wicked intention. Arrived within speaking distance, she stood for a little while confronting the fraudful figure, then put out her nose toward it, as if to be caressed, trying to create the impression that fondling and dalliance were more to her than wealth, power and the plaudits of the populace – that she had been accustomed to them all her sweet young life and could not get on without them. Then she approached a little nearer, as if to shake hands, all the while maintaining the most amiable expression of countenance and executing all manner of seductive nods and winks and smiles. Suddenly she wheeled about and with the rapidity of lightning dealt out a terrible kick – a kick of inconceivable force and fury, comparable to nothing in nature but a stroke of paralysis out of a clear sky!