The Bag Page #2

"The Bag" by Hector Hugh Munro, also known by his pen name Saki, is a short story that showcases the author's trademark wit and satirical style. The narrative follows a young woman named Mrs. Clara Cressingham, who is faced with a shocking encounter when a mysterious bag appears at her feet. As the story unfolds, it explores themes of social class, human folly, and the uncanny, revealing how a seemingly mundane object can provoke unexpected and darkly ironic consequences. Through clever dialogue and sharp observation, Saki delivers a tale that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

• Short story

								

settled again round the tea-table, a silence broken only by despondent
munchings and the occasional feverish rattle of a teaspoon in its saucer.
A diversion was at last afforded by Mrs. Hoopington's fox-terrier, which
had jumped on to a vacant chair, the better to survey the delicacies of
the table, and was now sniffing in an upward direction at something
apparently more interesting than cold tea-cake.

"What is exciting him?" asked his mistress, as the dog suddenly broke
into short angry barks, with a running accompaniment of tremulous whines.

"Why," she continued, "it's your game-bag, Vladimir!  What have you got
in it?"

"By Gad," said the Major, who was now standing up; "there's a pretty warm
scent!"

And then a simultaneous idea flashed on himself and Mrs. Hoopington.
Their faces flushed to distinct but harmonious tones of purple, and with
one accusing voice they screamed, "You've shot the fox!"

Norah tried hastily to palliate Vladimir's misdeed in their eyes, but it
is doubtful whether they heard her.  The Major's fury clothed and
reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one
day's shopping tries on a succession of garments.  He reviled and railed
at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied himself with a
strong, deep pity too poignent for tears, he condemned every one with
whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments.  In
fact, he conveyed the impression that if a destroying angel had been lent
to him for a week it would have had very little time for private study.
In the lulls of his outcry could be heard the querulous monotone of Mrs.
Hoopington and the sharp staccato barking of the fox-terrier.  Vladimir,
who did not understand a tithe of what was being said, sat fondling a
cigarette and repeating under his breath from time to time a vigorous
English adjective which he had long ago taken affectionately into his
vocabulary.  His mind strayed back to the youth in the old Russian
folk-tale who shot an enchanted bird with dramatic results.  Meanwhile,
the Major, roaming round the hall like an imprisoned cyclone, had caught
sight of and joyfully pounced on the telephone apparatus, and lost no
time in ringing up the hunt secretary and announcing his resignation of
the Mastership.  A servant had by this time brought his horse round to
the door, and in a few seconds Mrs. Hoopington's shrill monotone had the
field to itself.  But after the Major's display her best efforts at vocal
violence missed their full effect; it was as though one had come straight
out from a Wagner opera into a rather tame thunderstorm.  Realising,
perhaps, that her tirades were something of an anticlimax, Mrs.
Hoopington broke suddenly into some rather necessary tears and marched
out of the room, leaving behind her a silence almost as terrible as the
turmoil which had preceded it.

"What shall I do with--that?" asked Vladimir at last.

"Bury it," said Norah.

"Just plain burial?" said Vladimir, rather relieved.  He had almost
expected that some of the local clergy would have insisted on being
present, or that a salute might have to be fired over the grave.

And thus it came to pass that in the dusk of a November evening the
Russian boy, murmuring a few of the prayers of his Church for luck, gave
hasty but decent burial to a large polecat under the lilac trees at
Hoopington.
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