The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other StoriesBenson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
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The Countess of Lowndes Square, and Other Stories
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
English fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, English
“Trunk call,” said the operator, and he listened.
Soon the voice came through.
“Mr. Waghorn?” it said.
“Yes.”
“I have found the box in exactly the place described. It contained what
we had been told it would contain. I shall leave the house, taking all
the servants away, to-morrow.”
* * * * *
Two mornings later the papers contained news of a Zeppelin raid during
the night on certain Eastern counties. The details given were vague and
meagre, and no names of towns or villages where bombs had been dropped
were vouchsafed to the public. But later in the day private information
came to Waghorn that Forsyth Hall, near Epping, had been completely
wrecked. No lives, luckily, were lost, for the house was empty.
CAT STORIES
“PUSS-CAT”
It was during the month of May some nine years ago that the beginning of
the events that concerned Puss-cat took place. I was living at the time
on the green outskirts of a country town, and my dining-room at the back
of the house opened on to a small garden framed in brick walls some five
feet high. Breakfasting there one morning, I saw a large black and white
cat, with a sharp but serious face, observing me with studied attention.
Now at the time there was an interregnum, and my house was without a
mistress (in the shape of a cat), and it at once struck me that I was
being interviewed by this big and pleasing stranger, to see if I would
do. So, since there is nothing that a prospective mistress likes less
than premature familiarity on the part of the householder whom she may
be thinking of engaging, I took no direct notice of the cat, but
continued to eat my breakfast carefully and tidily. After a short
inspection, the cat quietly withdrew without once looking back, and I
supposed that I was dismissed, or that she had decided, after all, to
keep on her present household.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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