A boy raises a polecat-ferret in the toolshed as a god, an aunt is left up a tree by a hyena, and a governess is disposed of with tact. Saki was born in Burma and raised by two tyrannical aunts whom he spent his career killing in print; each story is three pages long, ends on a line you do not see coming, and he was shot dead by a sniper on the Somme at forty-five.