Roald Dahl - The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl, Volume 1

"Must have been mad."

"He was. Mad as a hatter. You know once he walked into the Sporting Club at Alexandria at drinking time."

"That wasn't so mad."

"He walked into the big lounge and as he went in he held the door open and started calling his dog. Then when he thought the dog had come in he closed the door and started walking right down the length of the room, stopping every now and then and looking round and saying, "Come on, Smith, old boy, come on.' He kept flipping his fingers. Once he got down under a table where two men and two women were drinking. He got on to his hands and knees and said, "Smith, come on out of there; come here at once,' and he put out his hand and started dragging nothing at all from under the table. Then he apologized to the people at the table. "This is the hell of a dog,' he said to them. You should have seen their faces. He went on like that all down the room and when he came to the other end he held the door open for the dog to go out and then went out after it."

"Man was mad."

"Mad as a hatter. And you should have seen their faces. It was full of people drinking and they didn't know whether it was them who were crazy or whether it was Stinker. They kept looking up at each other to make sure that they weren't the only ones who couldn't see the dog. One man dropped his drink."

"That was awful."

"Terrible."

The waiter came and went. The room was full of people now, all sitting at little tables, talking and drinking and wearing their uniforms. The pilot poked the ice down into his glass with his finger.

"He used to jink too," he said.

"Who?"

"Stinker. He used to talk about it."

"Jinking isn't anything," I said. "It's like not touching the cracks on the pavement when you're walking along."

"Balls. That's just personal. Doesn't affect anyone else."

"Well, it's like car-waiting."

"What's car-waiting?"

"I always do it," I said.

"What is it?"

"Just as you're going to drive off, you sit back and count twenty, then you drive off."

"You're mad too," he said. "You're like Stinker."

"It's a wonderful way to avoid accidents. I've never had one in a car yet; at least, not a bad one."

"You're drunk."

"No, I always do it."

"Why?"

"Because then if someone was going to have stepped off the kerb in front of your car, you won't hit them because you started later. You were delayed because you counted twenty, and the person who stepped off the kerb whom you would have hit-you missed him."

"Why?"

"He stepped off the kerb long before you got there because you counted twenty."

"That's a good idea."

"I know it's a good idea."

"It's a bloody marvellous idea."

"I've saved lots of lives. And you can drive straight across intersections because the car you would have hit has already gone by. It went by just a little earlier because you delayed yourself by counting twenty."

"Marvellous."

"Isn't it?"

"But it's like jinking," he said. "You never really know what would have happened."

"I always do it," I said.

We kept right on drinking.

"Look at that woman," I said.

"The one with the bosom?"

"Yes, marvellous bosom."

He said slowly, "I bet I've killed lots of women more beautiful than that one."

"Not lots with bosoms like that."

"I'll bet I have. Shall we have another drink?"

"Yes, one for the road."

"There aren't any other women with bosoms like that," I said. "Not in Germany anyway."

"Oh yes there are. I've killed lots of them."

"All right. You've killed lots of women with wonderful bosoms."

He leaned back and waved his hand around the room. "See all the people in this room," he said.

"Yes."

"Wouldn't there be a bloody row if they were all suddenly dead; if they all suddenly fell off their chairs on to the floor dead?"

"What about it?"

"Wouldn't there be a bloody row?"

"Certainly there'd be a row."

"If all the waiters got together and put stuff in all the drinks and everyone died."

"There'd be a godalmighty row."

"Well, I've done that hundreds of times. I've killed more people than there are in this room hundreds of times. So have you."

"Lots more," I said. "But that's different."

"Same sort of people. Men and women and waiters. All drinking in a pub."

"That's different."

"Like hell it is. Wouldn't there be a bloody row if it happened here?"

"Bloody awful row."

"But we've done it. Lots of times."

"Hundreds of times," I said. "This is nothing."

"This is a lousy place."

"Yes, it's lousy. Let's go somewhere else."

"Finish our drinks."

We finished our drinks and we both tried to pay the bill, so we tossed for it and I won. It came to sixteen dollars and twenty-five cents. He gave the waiter a two-dollar tip.

We got up and walked around the tables and over to the door.

"Taxi," he said.

"Yes, must have a taxi."

There wasn't a doorman. We stood out on the kerb waiting for a taxi to come along and he said, "This is a good town."

"Wonderful town," I said. I felt fine. It was dark outside, but there were a few street-lamps, and we could see the cars going by and the people walking on the other side of the street. There was a thin, quiet drizzle falling, and the wetness on the black street shone yellow under the lights of the cars arid under the street-lamps. The tyres of the cars hissed on the wet surface.

"Let's go to a place which has lots of whisky," he said. "Lots of whisky and a man with egg on his beard serving it."

"Fine."

"Somewhere where there are no other people but just us and the man with egg on his beard. Either that."

"Yes," I said. "Either that or what?"

"Or a place with a hundred thousand people in it."

"Yes," I said. "OK."

We stood there waiting and we could see the lights of the cars as they came round the bend over to the left, coming towards us with the tyres swishing on the wet surface and going past us up the road to the bridge which goes over the river. We could see the drizzle falling through the beams of their headlights and we stood there waiting for a taxi.

NOT long ago, a large wooden case was deposited at the door of my house by the railway delivery service. It was an unusually strong and well-constructed object, and made of some kind of darkred hardwood, not unlike mahogany. I lifted it with great difficulty on to a table in the garden, and examined it carefully. The stencilling on one side said that it had been shipped from Haifa by the rn/v Waverley Star, but I could find no sender's name or address. I tried to think of somebody living in Haifa or thereabouts who might be wanting to send me a magnificent present. I could think of no one. I walked slowly to the toolshed, still pondering the matter deeply, and returned with a hammer and screwdriver. Then I began gently to prise open the top of the case.

Behold, it was filled with books! Extraordinary books! One by one, I lifted them all out (not yet looking inside any of them) and stacked them in three tall piles on the table. There were twentyeight volumes altogether, and very beautiful they were indeed. Each of them was identically and superbly bound in rich green morocco, with the initials O. H. C. and a Roman numeral (I to XXVIII) tooled in gold upon the spine.

I took up the nearest volume, number XVI, and opened it. The unlined white pages were filled with a neat small handwriting in black ink. On the title page was written "1934'. Nothing else. I took up another volume, number XXI. It contained more manuscript in the same handwriting, but on the title page it said "1939'. I put it down and pulled out Volume I, hoping to find a preface of some kind there, or perhaps the author's name. Instead, I found an envelope inside the cover. The envelope was addressed to me. I took out the letter it contained and glanced quickly at the signature. Oswald Hendryks Cornelius, it said.