Tobermory — A Classic Short Story by Saki

HumorUs Stories — Classic and Original Funny Stories

The episode presents a dramatic reading of Saki's short story 'Tobermory,' centered on a man who claims to have taught a cat to speak. This

Key takeaways

• Cornelius Appin claims to have spent 17 years mastering the art of teaching animals human speech.
• The cat, Tobermory, causes a social scandal by revealing guests' secrets and insults during tea time.

Main topics

• Saki's short story Tobermory
• Social scandal and gossip

Notable quotes

I don't mind if I do.

Conclusion

A witty exploration of the dangers of truth-telling and a poignant loo

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:02) From short story verses, this is humorous stories. We know you like your humor for free. But, and there's always a but, here's ours. Every house party has a guest who knows too much. Speaker 1 (0:30) A Speaker 2 (0:31) mild little man named Cornelius Appen has spent 17 years on one problem. He believes he's solved it. The company around a tea table does not believe him. And that, as it happens, is the last comfortable moment anyone in the house will enjoy. So pour yourself some tea. Oh, and mind the saucer. Here is Tobermory by Saki. Speaker 2 (1:20) was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is nothing to hunt, unless one is bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemley's house party was not bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a full gathering of her guests round the tea table on this particular afternoon. and in spite of the blankness of the season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in the company of that fatigued restlessness, which means a dread of the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The undisguised, open-mouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on the homely, negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the vaguest reputation. Someone had said he was clever, and he had got his invitation in the moderate expectation, on the part of his hostess, that some portion at least of his cleverness would be contributed to the general entertainment. Until tea-time that day, she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force nor a begetter of amateur theatricals. neither did his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing to pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency Speaker 2 (2:50) He had subsided into mere Mr. Appen, and the Cornelius seemed a piece of transparent baptismal bluff. And now he was claiming to have launched on the world a discovery beside which the invention of gunpowder, of the printing press, and of steam locomotion were inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides in many directions during the recent decades, but this thing seemed to belong to the domain of miracle. rather than scientific achievement. And do you really ask us to believe, Sir Wilford was saying, that Speaker 1 (3:25) you have discovered a means for instructing animals in the art of human speech, and that dear old Tobermory has proved your first successful pupil? It is a problem at which I have worked for the last seventeen years, said Mr. Appen, but only during the last eight or nine months have I been rewarded with glimmerings of success. but latterly only with cats, those wonderful creatures which have assimilated themselves so marvelously with our civilization while retaining all of their highly developed feral instincts. Here and there among cats one comes across an outstanding superior intellect, just as one does among the rock of human beings. And when I made the acquaintance of Tobermory a week ago, I saw at once that I was in Speaker 2 (4:09) contact with a beyond cat of extraordinary intelligence. I had gone far along the road to success in recent experiments. With Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the goal. Mr. Appen concluded his remarkable statement in a voice which he strove to divest of a triumphant inflection. No one said rats, though Clovis's lip moved in a monosyllabic contortion which probably invoked those rodents of disbelief. Speaker 1 (4:36) And do you mean to say... Speaker 2 (4:38) asked Miss Resker after a slight pause, that Speaker 1 (4:41) you have taught Tobermory to say and understand easy sentences of one syllable? Speaker 2 (4:46) My dear Miss Resker, said the Wonder Worker patiently, one teaches little children and savages and backward adults in that piecemeal Speaker 1 (4:55) fashion. When one has solved the problem of making a beginning with an animal of highly developed intelligence, one has no need for those halting methods. Tobermory can speak our language with perfect correctness. Speaker 2 (5:07) This time Clovis very distinctly said, beyond rats. Sir Wilfred was more polite, but equally sceptical. Hadn't we better Speaker 1 (5:15) have the Speaker 2 (5:15) cat in and judge for ourselves? suggested Lady Blemley. Sir Wilfred went in search of the animal, and the company settled themselves down to the languid expectation of witnessing some