Read Online Complete Short Stories by Robert Graves - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Graves
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remains in the lead coffin which she enclosed. So I had to dig them up again, though I had said the burial service over them and left nothing out.
‘As for Pekey Durnsford, he was so full of gratitude to me for saving his life that he slobbered all over me. And soon I found that he liked silly games, just like I did. Itwas he who first taught Old Papa Johnson how to do this paper-folding business, though Papa’s improved on Pekey’s methods a lot since. And in return Papa showed him where to scare up all the living creatures in our kingdom. Pekey found one quite new species of fresh-water cheese mite which he called Something-or-other Papa-john-sonensis. And you should have seen the letter of thanks that I got fromthe New York Museum of Natural History!
‘Morgan’s sister – now child, for goodness’ sake don’t remind her who H.H. Johnson is – I recognized her handwriting when she put my name on the fever chart – is not a bad woman in spite of her airs, though it’s taken me three weeks and a lot of patience to coax her to be my playmate. And do you know, little Gravey-spoons? if it hadn’t been for that whiskybusiness I verily believe that Old Papa Johnson could even in time have made a playmate of her ill-tempered brother.’
Interview with a Dead Man
AFTER A WHILE the dead man, recognizing my voice, began to whistle and imitate the masters of his old school, many of whom, bicentenarians, survived him. ‘Though perhaps no longer, ahem, in the active pursuit of pedagogy,’ he intoned in a mock-clerical voice.
‘What’s the news?’ I asked.
‘News?’ he said. ‘Well, for a start here’s a letter that came last night from myexecutors informing me that I am expected to write a posthumous Anthem for the League of Nations suitable for translation into at least twenty-seven languages.’
He went on to say that he had indeed already executed the commission: early that morning he had written a marching song of hope, to rhythms heavily stressed for percussion purposes, and poked it up through the letter slit of the stoutWelsh-quarried slabs of slate, inscribed ‘he being dead yet liveth’, which formed the roof of his quasi-eternal resting place. He had, however, recollected the nearness of the church, where the song would undoubtedly be sung at Christmas and Easter, on Empire Day, the King’s Birthday, and all similar semi-religious, semi-political feasts; and had slowly pulled the composition back and torn it upbefore the sexton had caught a glint of it.
‘It was an ironic production,’ he said, ‘but the living can never believe that the dead have a sense of humour, so whenever any reference had been made to the song in my hearing or whenever it was sung or whistled, I should have been forced to chuckle audibly to disprove this popular fallacy.’
‘I am beautifully embalmed,’ he continued. ‘They were obliged,of course, to remove my digestive and sexual organs, which are corruptible, but I still have my fingers free to pick my nose in the old absent fashion, to scratch my head when it itches and to use a pencil thoughtfully when the itch is eased. This is a lidless coffin allowing me plenty of elbow room. My eyes are shut with coins, but that is no handicap in the decent darkness of the vault;even when alive, I always had the knack of writing with my eyes shut. I lay the left hand flat as a margin to the paper and, pricking the skin with my pencil each time, know by sensory indication just where to begin the new line.’
Thus he rattled on, remarking among other things that at least he had no more financial worries. He had benefited handsomely under his own will and paid the lease ofthe vault and of a small plot of land around it for ninety-nine years in advance. Unfortunately the freehold, the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, was not for sale; he had, however, secured the option for renewal at the same terms when the ninety-nine years should have expired. He asked for news
‘As for Pekey Durnsford, he was so full of gratitude to me for saving his life that he slobbered all over me. And soon I found that he liked silly games, just like I did. Itwas he who first taught Old Papa Johnson how to do this paper-folding business, though Papa’s improved on Pekey’s methods a lot since. And in return Papa showed him where to scare up all the living creatures in our kingdom. Pekey found one quite new species of fresh-water cheese mite which he called Something-or-other Papa-john-sonensis. And you should have seen the letter of thanks that I got fromthe New York Museum of Natural History!
‘Morgan’s sister – now child, for goodness’ sake don’t remind her who H.H. Johnson is – I recognized her handwriting when she put my name on the fever chart – is not a bad woman in spite of her airs, though it’s taken me three weeks and a lot of patience to coax her to be my playmate. And do you know, little Gravey-spoons? if it hadn’t been for that whiskybusiness I verily believe that Old Papa Johnson could even in time have made a playmate of her ill-tempered brother.’
Interview with a Dead Man
AFTER A WHILE the dead man, recognizing my voice, began to whistle and imitate the masters of his old school, many of whom, bicentenarians, survived him. ‘Though perhaps no longer, ahem, in the active pursuit of pedagogy,’ he intoned in a mock-clerical voice.
‘What’s the news?’ I asked.
‘News?’ he said. ‘Well, for a start here’s a letter that came last night from myexecutors informing me that I am expected to write a posthumous Anthem for the League of Nations suitable for translation into at least twenty-seven languages.’
He went on to say that he had indeed already executed the commission: early that morning he had written a marching song of hope, to rhythms heavily stressed for percussion purposes, and poked it up through the letter slit of the stoutWelsh-quarried slabs of slate, inscribed ‘he being dead yet liveth’, which formed the roof of his quasi-eternal resting place. He had, however, recollected the nearness of the church, where the song would undoubtedly be sung at Christmas and Easter, on Empire Day, the King’s Birthday, and all similar semi-religious, semi-political feasts; and had slowly pulled the composition back and torn it upbefore the sexton had caught a glint of it.
‘It was an ironic production,’ he said, ‘but the living can never believe that the dead have a sense of humour, so whenever any reference had been made to the song in my hearing or whenever it was sung or whistled, I should have been forced to chuckle audibly to disprove this popular fallacy.’
‘I am beautifully embalmed,’ he continued. ‘They were obliged,of course, to remove my digestive and sexual organs, which are corruptible, but I still have my fingers free to pick my nose in the old absent fashion, to scratch my head when it itches and to use a pencil thoughtfully when the itch is eased. This is a lidless coffin allowing me plenty of elbow room. My eyes are shut with coins, but that is no handicap in the decent darkness of the vault;even when alive, I always had the knack of writing with my eyes shut. I lay the left hand flat as a margin to the paper and, pricking the skin with my pencil each time, know by sensory indication just where to begin the new line.’
Thus he rattled on, remarking among other things that at least he had no more financial worries. He had benefited handsomely under his own will and paid the lease ofthe vault and of a small plot of land around it for ninety-nine years in advance. Unfortunately the freehold, the property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, was not for sale; he had, however, secured the option for renewal at the same terms when the ninety-nine years should have expired. He asked for news
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