In these macabre, acid and very funny short stories, Saki drives a knife into the upper crust of English Edwardian life. Here we meet, in particular, two of his most brilliant creations, the self-possessed Clovis and the vain and supremely stylish Reginald. There is tea on the lawn, the smell of gunshot, the tinkle of the caviar fork and, under it all, the half-seen, half-felt menace lying beneath the polished surface of society.