Topic: gambling

“Dog Race”

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Plot Description

This is from the “Claud’s Dog” series of stories that were first published in Someone Like You.

Spoiler warning! The narrator Gordon and his friend Claud are exceptionally nervous, because they’re about to pull off the biggest scam of their lives. They’re off to the greyhound racing track with their dog Jackie. Claud knows everything there is to know about greyhound racing, and he’s sure they’ve got a winner. Four months before Claud bought a dog that turned out to be a dead ringer for Jackie, but couldn’t run fast at all. They’ve been running the slow dog at the track for the past eight weeks to make sure that he gets moved into the bottom racing grade. Now they plan on running Jackie and placing all their money on him to win. The only obstacle is Mr. Feasey, who runs the track. He has an incredible memory and is able to spot an imposter dog from a mile away. Once they get to the track, they’re horrified when Mr. Feasey tells them that he doesn’t intend to let them run their “champion” anymore. As a last resort, Claud bets Mr. Feasey a pound that Jackie won’t come in last place. This piques Feasey’s interest, and he inspects the dog closely. Satisfied that it’s the same dog, he accepts the bet and allows Jackie into the first race. While Claud gets Jackie ready and bribes the winder (the man who pulls the rabbit that the dogs chase), Gordon goes down the row of bookies placing bets on Jackie. He stands to win over two thousand pounds. The race begins and Jackie wins easily. Mr. Feasey is furious and tells them that they’re banned from the track in the future. Claud takes Jackie back to the van while Gordon goes to collect their winnings. When he gets there, though, the first bookie won’t pay and says he backed another dog. All the details are in the bookmaker’s book, but he won’t let Gordon see it. None of the other bookies will pay out either. “You’re a thief! A lousy little thief!” Gordon yells. “Well, I never,” says the bookie. “Look who’s talking!” Everyone laughs as Gordon sees Claud waiting for him with a suitcase in hand for the money.

“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

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  • Connections:
    • In 1952 Dahl wrote an article about the famous Pakistani mystic Kuda Bux, who inspired this story. He reworked a great portion of that text into Imhrat Khan’s tale. You can read about differences between the texts here.

Plot Description

This story was inspired by the real life Pakistani mystic Kuda Bux, who claimed to be able to see without his eyes.

Spoiler warning! This famous tale is actually a story-within-a-story-within-a-story-within-a-story. We start with Henry Sugar, a wealthy and idle playboy who likes to gamble and is not above cheating to win. One summer weekend, Henry is staying at a friend’s mansion and is depressed at the neverending rain outside. Bored, he wanders into the library and discovers a blue exercise book one one of the shelves. On the first page is written: “A Report on an Interview with Imhrat Khan, the Man Who Could See Without His Eyes” by Dr. John Cartwright. Henry sits down to read the whole thing.

Now we get to read Dr. Cartwright’s report. He explains that one day he was in the doctor’s lounge at his hospital in Bombay, when an Indian man entered and asked for assistance. He claimed to be able to see without his eyes. Cartwright and three other doctors agreed to help him promote his theatre show by bandaging his eyes completely. When they are finished, they are amazed to see him ride off on his bicycle through heavy traffic. That night, Cartwright goes to see Khan’s show. Afterwards, he invites Khan to dinner and asks him to tell him how he learned this amazing trick. Khan agreeds to tell him.

Now we get Khan’s story. As a young boy, he was fascinated with magic and ran off to be a magician’s assistant. He was terribly disappointed to realize it was all trickery and sleight of hand. He decides he wants to learn the strange power called yoga. It’s hard to find a teacher, because Khan wanted to learn yoga for fame and fortune, but real yogis are threatened with death if they perform in public. Eventually Khan manages to locate a yogi called Banerjee, and he watches in secret as Banerjee levitates during meditation. The yogi discovers him and becomes enraged, chasing him off. Khan comes back every day, though, and eventually the Banerjee agrees to recommend him to a yogi friend for instruction. So Khan finally begins the yoga training. He learns about concentrating the conscious mind. He describes all the exercises he does. He has a minor success when he’s able to walk across a firepit with barefeet. Eventually he succeeds in seeing without his eyes. He can even see through playing cards.

Doctor Cartwright is amazed with Imhrat Khan’s story. He decides that it must be published, that Khan’s abilities might pave the way towards helping the blind see and the deaf hear. Before he can speak to him again the next day, though, he learns that Khan has died in his sleep.

Now back to Henry Sugar. He finishes the story and decides to try the yoga training himself. He wants to be able to see through playing cards and win in casinos. He steals the book and begins to practice at home. He begins to make progress immediately, and discovers that he’s one of the one-in-a-million people that can develop yoga powers with amazing speed. Three years later, Henry can see through a playing card in less than four seconds. He goes immediately to a big London casino and proceeds to win over six thousand pounds. When he gets home, though, he realizes that he doesn’t feel as happy as he expected. The yoga training has changed his outlook on life. In the morning, he throws a twenty pound note to someone on the street and realizes that charity makes him feel good. Without a thought, he throws the entire pile out the window. A riot ensues and a policeman comes to question him. Henry is astonished when the policeman berates him for not giving the money to a worthy cause, like a hospital or orphanage. Henry decides the policeman is right and formulates a plan. For the next twenty years, Henry travels the world winning fortunes at casinos and sending it to his personal accountant in Switzerland. The accountant sets up orphanages in every country Henry visits. Henry also has a personal make-up artist who travels with him so he doesn’t get recognized. By the time he dies, he has won over one hundred and forty-four million pounds and set up over twenty orphanages.

Now we get to the last story. The author (presumably Dahl) explains that John Winston, Henry’s accountant, called him not long after Henry’s death. He wanted the world to know what Henry had done. The author is fascinated with the tale and agrees to write it up and protect Henry’s true identity. And the finished result is the story that we’ve just read.

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“Taste”

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Plot Description

Spoiler warning! The setting for this story is a dinner party at the home of stock broker Mike Schofield. The guests include Schofield and his wife and daughter, the narrator and his wife, and a man called Richard Pratt. Pratt is a famous gourmet and enjoys showing off his knowledge of fine wine and food. He is also a thoroughly unpleasant man. Both times prior that Pratt dined with Schofield, the two men made a curious bet: Schofield bet that Pratt could not identify some special wine that he had procured for the night. Pratt had always won. On the night this story takes place, Schofield thinks that he will finally win one over on the gourmet. He has a very rare bottle of claret from a tiny chateau in France, and he boasts that Pratt will never be able to guess it. Pratt, who had been spending the night engrossed in conversation with Schofield’s daughter Louise, takes the bet and asks to up the stakes. He offers to bet two of his houses against the hand of Louise in marriage. Both Louise and her mother are against it, but Schofield manages to convince them to accept. He believes that Pratt has no chance of winning. Pratt then proceeds to smell and taste the wine, and he slowly begins to narrow down its possible origin. Eventually he gets the correct answer and Schofield sits there horrified. Just as Pratt is starting to get nasty about the bet, the house maid appears at his arm and offers him his spectacles, which he had misplaced earlier. He takes no notice of her, but she stands her ground and reminds him (rather loudly) that he left them in Mr. Schofield’s study on top of the filing cabinet when he went in there that evening… which is just where Pratt, on a previous visit, had advised Schofield to leave his wines to “breathe”. In other words, he cheated!

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Taste
Redpath Press, 1986

Spanish Covers

Nórdica Libros, 2016
Nórdica Libros, 2016

“The Ratcatcher”

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Plot Description

This is one of the “Claud’s Dog” series of stories from Someone Like You and it features many of the same characters from the other tales.

Spoiler warning! The narrator is at the filling station one day with Claud when the ratcatcher sidles up and announces that he has been sent by the Health Officer to take care of the rat problem. He begins to expound on the difficulty of outsmarting rats and the different approaches you would take to killing them. Claud tells him that the rats he needs to kill are living in a hayrick across the road. The ratcatcher, who looks a lot like a large rat, formulates a cunning plan: he will leave oats around the rick for a few days to gain the rats’ trust, and then he’ll spread poisoned oats that will kill them. When he comes back to pick up the dead rats though, he discovers that they haven’t touched the poison. He claims that they must have another food supply from somewhere (there’s a gruesome connection here with “Rummins”) and they’re too full to eat the oats. Disappointed by his failure, he tries to make amends with the men by showing them some rat tricks. He pulls a rat out of his pockets (“Always got a rat or two about me somewhere.”) and drops it down the neck of his shirt. Then he drops in a ferret he pulled out of another pocket. A frantic chase and fight ensue in the shirt, and eventually the ratcatcher pulls out the dead rat and the bloody ferret. After that performance, he claims he can do something even more amazing: he can kill a rat himself without using his hands or arms or legs or feet. He gets Claud to bet him a shilling that he can’t. He produces another live rat and they tie it to a car antenna. The ratcatcher begins to stare at the rat, moving closer and closer, until finally he strikes like a snake with his mouth open and his yellow teeth biting. The narrator closes his eyes, and when he opens them the ratcatcher is collecting his money and spitting out blood. “Penny sticks and licorish bootlaces is all made from rat’s blood,” he claims. When he notices that his audience is no longer interested in him, he walks off in his particular rat-like way, “making almost no noise with his footsteps even on the gravel of the driveway.”

“Neck”

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Plot Description

I think this story is a lot more effective if you actually visualize it like you’re seeing it on television. Dahl did, in fact, dramatize it on his show “Tales of the Unexpected” with Sir John Gielgud as the butler Jelks and Joan Collins as Natalia. Doesn’t that just make it even better?

Spoiler warning! The narrator, a newspaper society columnist, starts off by telling us the history of Sir Basil Turton. Sir Basil inherited a vast newspaper empire from his father and immediately became the most sought-after bachelor in London. He was swept off his feet by a dazzling foreign woman named Natalia and they were married not long after. The narrator meets Lady Turton at a dinner party and, though he finds her manners rude, manages to wrangle an invitation to visit her home the next weekend. When the day arrives, the narrator drives down and is astonished at the variety of topiary and sculpture on the grounds of Wooton (Sir Basil’s estate). He enters the house and is shown to his room by a footman. Instantly he can tell that something is wrong in this house. While changing for dinner, our narrator is interrupted by Jelks, the butler, who launches into a peculiar rant about tipping. The upshot is that he would rather the narrator split his card winnings from the weekend with him than to tip. The narrator agrees, but is not amused when Jelks goes on to give him tips about Lady Turton’s playing tactics. The narrator gets the idea that Jelks doesn’t much like Lady Turton, nor her other houseguests. The narrator meets everyone else at dinner, and settles down to converse with Sir Basil about sculpture. Lady Turton amuses herself with her friends Carmen La Rosa and Major Jack Haddock, a bounder that is obviously in love with her. The narrator notices that Sir Basil is well aware of his wife’s indiscretion, but he’s unable to bring himself to do anything about it. The next day, the narrator and Sir Basil go for a walk around the estate. They take a seat up high on a hill that overlooks the entire garden. In the middle of their conversation, they witness Lady Turton and Major Haddock cavorting on one of the lawns, unaware that they are being watched. Haddock has a camera and is taking pictures of Lady Turton, who is mocking one of the sculptures. As a joke, she puts her head through a hole in the sculpture and then Haddock kisses her. Unfortunately, her head gets stuck. Sir Basil suggests that perhaps they should go help her out. When Sir Basil and the narrator arrive, Natalia is embarrassed and furious. Sir Basil tells Jelks to go get him something so that he can take the sculpture apart. Jelks returns with a saw and an axe. Everybody freezes as Jelks holds out the implements, and the narrator notices that Jelks slightly pushes the axe forward. Sir Basil takes the axe. The narrator says, “For me, after that, it was like the awful moment when you see a child running out into the road and a car is coming and all you can do is shut your eyes tight and wait…” When he finally opens his eyes, Sir Basil is telling Jelks that the axe is far too dangerous and requesting the saw. Lady Turton looks quite ill and her “mouth was opening and shutting making a kind of gurgling sound”. The narrator notices that, for the first time, Sir Basil has rosy cheeks and a smile in his eyes.

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“My Lady Love, My Dove”

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Spoiler warning! Arthur is happily married to Pamela, a very wealthy yet overbearing woman. They are awaiting some weekend guests, the Snapes, and Pamela isn’t looking forward to it. The only reason she invited them was that the Snapes are good bridge players and they play for a decent stake. Suddenly Pamela gets the idea that they should bug the Snapes’s room. Arthur doesn’t like the idea, but Pamela bullies him and reminds him that they’ve done similar things together in the past. “I’m a nasty person,” she says. “And so are you — in a secret sort of way. That’s why we get along together.” Arthur is eventually persuaded to hide a microphone in the guest room and run the wire to the speaker in the master bedroom. Later the guests arrive and everyone has a pleasant dinner. Afterwards they play bridge, and the Snapes have all the luck. The wife, Sally, makes one mistake though that costs them several hundred points. At the end of the evening the couples part and Pamela excitedly tells Arthur to turn on the speaker. They are astonished to hear Mr. Snape reprimanding his wife for her earlier bridge error. She apologizes, but he tells her that they’re just going to have to practice some more. Arthur realizes that they’re talking about a betting code which allows them to cheat and know all of their partner’s cards. Arthur isn’t sure what they should do about it, and waits for Pamela’s decision. Her words shock him: “Why, Arthur, this is a mar-vellous idea… Go fetch a deck of cards; we’ll start right away.”

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“Mr. Feasey”

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Information

Plot Description

This is from the “Claud’s Dog” series of stories that were first published in Someone Like You.

Spoiler warning! The narrator Gordon and his friend Claud are exceptionally nervous, because they’re about to pull off the biggest scam of their lives. They’re off to the greyhound racing track with their dog Jackie. Claud knows everything there is to know about greyhound racing, and he’s sure they’ve got a winner. Four months before Claud bought a dog that turned out to be a dead ringer for Jackie, but couldn’t run fast at all. They’ve been running the slow dog at the track for the past eight weeks to make sure that he gets moved into the bottom racing grade. Now they plan on running Jackie and placing all their money on him to win. The only obstacle is Mr. Feasey, who runs the track. He has an incredible memory and is able to spot an imposter dog from a mile away. Once they get to the track, they’re horrified when Mr. Feasey tells them that he doesn’t intend to let them run their “champion” anymore. As a last resort, Claud bets Mr. Feasey a pound that Jackie won’t come in last place. This piques Feasey’s interest, and he inspects the dog closely. Satisfied that it’s the same dog, he accepts the bet and allows Jackie into the first race. While Claud gets Jackie ready and bribes the winder (the man who pulls the rabbit that the dogs chase), Gordon goes down the row of bookies placing bets on Jackie. He stands to win over two thousand pounds. The race begins and Jackie wins easily. Mr. Feasey is furious and tells them that they’re banned from the track in the future. Claud takes Jackie back to the van while Gordon goes to collect their winnings. When he gets there, though, the first bookie won’t pay and says he backed another dog. All the details are in the bookmaker’s book, but he won’t let Gordon see it. None of the other bookies will pay out either. “You’re a thief! A lousy little thief!” Gordon yells. “Well, I never,” says the bookie. “Look who’s talking!” Everyone laughs as Gordon sees Claud waiting for him with a suitcase in hand for the money.

“The Hitchhiker”

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Plot Description

The narrator of this story is never named, but it sounds very much as if it’s Dahl himself. What do you think?

Spoiler warning! The narrator is driving to London is his lovely new BMW when he picks up a hitchhiker. The man, who looks rather like a rat, mentions that he’s going to the horse races, but not to bet or work the ticket machines. The narrator is intrigued and says that he’s a writer. They get to talking about the car, and the narrator proudly states that it can hit one hundred and twenty-nine miles per hour. The hitchhiker doubts that, so once they hit a straight patch of road, the narrator steps on the gas. They’re almost there when a policeman on a motorcycle zooms past and signals them to stop. The cop is a bit of a bully and threatens to have the narrator thrown in prison. He takes down his address and also the address of the hitchhiker. Then he gives them a ticket and leaves and they continue on their way. The narrator is worried about the ticket, but the hitchhiker says it will be fine. They begin talking about their careers again, and eventually the hitchhiker announces that he is a “fingersmith.” He is so skilled with his hands that he even manages to remove the narrator’s belt without him noticing. He attends the races and steals money from the winners. “That policeman’s going to check up on you pretty thoroughly,” the narrator says. “Doesn’t that worry you a bit?” The hitchhiker responds that no one will be checking up on him, as policemen have notoriously bad memories. “What’s memory got to do with it?” the narrator asks. “It’s written down in his book, isn’t it?” The hitchhiker proudly announces that he’s stolen both books from the policeman. “Easiest job I ever done.” They pull off the road to burn the books.

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