75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘Don’t interrupt me,’ I said. ‘In the next place, the story is much too long.’ Here I reached for a large pair of tailor’s scissors that lay on the table. ‘This story contains nine thousand words. We never care to use more than six thousand. I must therefore cut some of it off.’ I measured the story carefully with a pocket tape that lay in front of me, cut off three thousand words and handed them back to the author. ‘These words,’ I said, ‘you may keep. We make no claim on them at all. You are at liberty to make any use of them that you like.’

‘But please,’ he said, ‘you have cut off all the end of the story: the whole conclusion is gone. The readers can’t possibly tell—’

I smiled at him with something approaching kindness.

‘My dear sir,’ I said, ‘they never get beyond three thousand words of the end of a magazine story. The end is of no consequence whatever. The beginning, I admit, may be, but the end! Come! Come! And in any case in our magazine we print the end of each story separately, distributed among the advertisements to break the type. But just at present we have plenty of these on hand. You see,’ I continued, for there was something in the man’s manner that almost touched me, ‘all that is needed is that the last words printed must have a look of finality. That’s all. Now, let me see,’ and I turned to the place where the story was cut, ‘what are the last words: here: ‘Dorothea sank into a chair. There we must leave her!’ Excellent! What better end could you want? She sank into a chair and you leave her. Nothing more natural.’

The contributor seemed about to protest. But I stopped him.

‘There is one other small thing,’ I said. ‘Our coming number is to be a Plumbers’ and Motor Number. I must ask you to introduce a certain amount of plumbing into your story.’ I rapidly turned over the pages. ‘I see,’ I said, ‘that your story as written is laid largely in Spain in the summer. I shall ask you to alter this to Switzerland and make it winter time to allow for the breaking of steam-pipes. Such things as these, however, are mere details; we can easily arrange them.’

I reached out my hand.

‘And now,’ I said, ‘I must wish you a good afternoon.’

The contributor seemed to pluck up courage.

‘What about remuneration’ – he faltered.

I waived the question gravely aside. ‘You will, of course, be duly paid at our usual rate. You receive a cheque two years after publication. It will cover all your necessary expenses, including ink, paper, string, sealing-wax and other incidentals, in addition to which we hope to be able to make you a compensation for your time on a reasonable basis per hour. Good-bye.’

He left, and I could hear them throwing him downstairs.

Then I sat down, while my mind was on it, and wrote the advance notice of the story. It ran like this:

NEXT MONTH’S NUMBER OF THE MEGALOMANIA

MAGAZINE WILL CONTAIN A

THRILLING STORY, ENTITLED

‘ DOROTHEA DASHAWAY, OR, THE

QUICKSANDS OF SOCIETY. ’

The author has lately leaped into immediate recognition as the greatest master of the short story in the American World. His style has a brio , a poise [349] , a savoir faire , a je ne sais quoi [350] , which stamps all his work with the cachet of literary superiority. The sum paid for the story of Dorothea Dashaway is said to be the largest ever paid for a single MS [351] . Every page palpitates with interest, and at the conclusion of this remarkable narrative the reader lays down the page in utter bewilderment, to turn perhaps to the almost equally marvellous illustration of Messrs. Spiggott and Fawcett’s Home Plumbing Device Exposition which adorns the same number of the great review.

I wrote this out, rang the bell, and was just beginning to say to the secretary —

‘My dear child, – pray pardon my forgetfulness. You must be famished for lunch. Will you permit me—’

And then I woke up – at the wrong minute, as one always does.

Simple Stories of Success, or How to Succeed in Life (Stephen Leacock)

Let me begin with a sort of parable. Many years ago when I was on the staff of a great public school, we engaged a new swimming master.

He was the most successful man in that capacity that we had had for years.

Then one day it was discovered that he couldn’t swim.

He was standing at the edge of the swimming tank explaining the breast stroke to the boys in the water.

He lost his balance and fell in. He was drowned.

Or no, he wasn’t drowned, I remember, – he was rescued by some of the pupils whom he had taught to swim.

After he was resuscitated by the boys – it was one of the things he had taught them – the school dismissed him.

Then some of the boys who were sorry for him taught him how to swim, and he got a new job as a swimming master in another place.