The Feast of Nemesis

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　

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"It's a good thing that Saint Valentine's Day hasdropped out of vogue," said Mrs. Thackenbury; "what withChristmas and New Year and Easter, not to speak ofbirthdays, there are quite enough remembrance days as itis. I tried to save myself trouble at Christmas by justsending flowers to all my friends, but it wouldn't work;Gertrude has eleven hot-houses and about thirtygardeners, so it would have been ridiculous to sendflowers to her, and Milly has just started a florist'sshop, so it was equally out of the question there. Thestress of having to decide in a hurry what to give toGertrude and Milly just when I thought I'd got the wholequestion nicely off my mind completely ruined myChristmas, and then the awful monotony of the letters ofthanks: 'Thank you so much for your lovely flowers. Itwas so good of you to think of me.' Of course in themajority of cases I hadn't thought about the recipientsat all; their names were down in my list of 'people whomust not be left out.' If I trusted to remembering themthere would be some awful sins of omission.""The trouble is," said Clovis to his aunt, "allthese days of intrusive remembrance harp so persistentlyon one aspect of human nature and entirely ignore theother; that is why they become so perfunctory andartificial. At Christmas and New Year you are emboldenedand encouraged by convention to send gushing messages ofoptimistic goodwill and servile affection to people whomyou would scarcely ask to lunch unless some one else hadfailed you at the last moment; if you are supping at arestaurant on New Year's Eve you are permitted andexpected to join hands and sing 'For Auld Lang Syne' withstrangers whom you have never seen before and never wantto see again. But no licence is allowed in the oppositedirection.""Opposite direction; what opposite direction?"queried Mrs. Thackenbury."There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelingstowards people whom you simply loathe. That is reallythe crying need of our modern civilisation. Just thinkhow jolly it would be if a recognised day were set apartfor the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day whenone could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive toa carefully treasured list of 'people who must not be letoff.' I remember when I was at a private school we hadone day, the last Monday of the term I think it was,consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges; ofcourse we did not appreciate it as much as it deserved,because, after all, any day of the term could be used forthat purpose. Still, if one had chastised a smaller boyfor being cheeky weeks before, one was always permittedon that day to recall the episode to his memory bychastising him again. That is what the French callreconstructing the crime.""I should call it reconstructing the punishment,"said Mrs. Thackenbury; "and, anyhow, I don't see how youcould introduce a system of primitive schoolboy vengeanceinto civilised adult life. We haven't outgrown ourpassions, but we are supposed to have learned how to keepthem within strictly decorous limits.""Of course the thing would have to be done furtivelyand politely," said Clovis; "the charm of it would bethat it would never be perfunctory like the other thing.Now, for instance, you say to yourself: 'I must show theWebleys some attention at Christmas, they were kind todear Bertie at Bournemouth,' and you send them acalendar, and daily for six days after Christmas the maleWebley asks the female Webley if she has remembered tothank you for the calendar you sent them. Well,transplant that idea to the other and more human side ofyour nature, and say to yourself: 'Next Thursday isNemesis Day; what on earth can I do to those odiouspeople next door who made such an absurd fuss when PingYang bit their youngest child?' Then you'd get upawfully early on the allotted day and climb over intotheir garden and dig for truffles on their tennis courtwith a good gardening fork, choosing, of course, thatpart of the court that was screened from observation bythe laurel bushes. You wouldn't find any truffles butyou would find a great peace, such as no amount ofpresent-giving could ever bestow.""I shouldn't," said Mrs. Thackenbury, though her airof protest sounded a bit forced; "I should feel rather aworm for doing such a thing.""You exaggerate the power of upheaval which a wormwould be able to bring into play in the limited timeavailable," said Clovis; "if you put in a strenuous tenminutes with a really useful fork, the result ought tosuggest the operations of an unusually masterful mole ora badger in a hurry.""They might guess I had done it," said Mrs.Thackenbury."Of course they would," said Clovis; "that would behalf the satisfaction of the thing, just as you likepeople at Christmas to know what presents or cards you'vesent them. The thing would be much easier to manage, ofcourse, when you were on outwardly friendly terms withthe object of your dislike. That greedy little AgnesBlaik, for instance, who thinks of nothing but her food,it would be quite simple to ask her to a picnic in somewild woodland spot and lose her just before lunch wasserved; when you found her again every morsel of foodcould have been eaten up.""It would require no ordinary human strategy to loseAgnes Blaik when luncheon was imminent: in fact, I don'tbelieve it could be done.""Then have all the other guests, people whom youdislike, and lose the luncheon. It could have been sentby accident in the wrong direction.""It would be a ghastly picnic," said Mrs.Thackenbury."For them, but not for you," said Clovis; "you wouldhave had an early and comforting lunch before youstarted, and you could improve the occasion by mentioningin detail the items of the missing banquet - the lobsterNewburg and the egg mayonnaise, and the curry that was tohave been heated in a chafing-dish. Agnes Blaik would bedelirious long before you got to the list of wines, andin the long interval of waiting, before they had quiteabandoned hope of the lunch turning up, you could inducethem to play silly games, such as that idiotic one of'the Lord Mayor's dinner-party,' in which every one hasto choose the name of a dish and do something futile whenit is called out. In this case they would probably burstinto tears when their dish is mentioned. It would be aheavenly picnic."Mrs. Thackenbury was silent for a moment; she wasprobably making a mental list of the people she wouldlike to invite to the Duke Humphrey picnic. Presentlyshe asked: "And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley, whois always coddling himself - have you thought of anythingthat one could do to him?" Evidently she was beginningto see the possibilities of Nemesis Day."If there was anything like a general observance ofthe festival," said Clovis, "Waldo would be in suchdemand that you would have to bespeak him weeksbeforehand, and even then, if there were an east windblowing or a cloud or two in the sky he might be toocareful of his precious self to come out. It would berather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock in theorchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps' nestevery summer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoonwould appeal to his indolent tastes, and then, when hewas getting drowsy, a lighted fusee thrown into the nestwould bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, and theywould soon find a 'home away from home' on Waldo's fatbody. It takes some doing to get out of a hammock in ahurry.""They might sting him to death," protested Mrs.Thackenbury."Waldo is one of those people who would beenormously improved by death," said Clovis; "but if youdidn't want to go as far as that, you could have some wetstraw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammockat the same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest;the smoke would keep all but the most militant of thewasps just outside the stinging line, and as long asWaldo remained within its protection he would escapeserious damage, and could be eventually restored to hismother, kippered all over and swollen in places, butstill perfectly recognisable.""His mother would be my enemy for life," said Mrs.Thackenbury."That would be one greeting less to exchange atChristmas," said Clovis.

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