One-minute review: A group of travelers at mealtime. Some from
Comment: Not much point to the story other than a sharp contrast between the vulgar Germans and the refined English.
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman.
One-minute review: An actor—not sure just what is real or not real because he has been playacting so long—is abut to go back to England to join the army and fight. He is so tired of play acting that the war will be real experience. His girl thinks he is using enlistment to escape his debts, even his room rent. She calls him “Captain Jerk,” He says, “It’ll be real at least” …but there is no certainty in his face. He looks as if he might never know what is real, even if he dies trying to find out.”
Opening paragraph is a good description of jumbled talk in a crowded restaurant.
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman.
One-minute review: A little boy, a nature lover, lets his curiosity get the better of him and he touches a duck’s green egg in a deserted nest. He feels guilty. He should not have touched the egg. The mother duck might desert it. He passes a rainy day fitfully in school and then, after dinner, finds the wild duck’s nest to see if it is still deserted. He is relieved. The mother is on the egg. But she spots the little intruder. She makes a motion and she flies from the nest. Again the boy feels guilty until he sees that there are now two green eggs. The mother duck has not deserted the nest in spite of the little boy’s intrusion.
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman.
One-minute review: A Jewish holy man, a “Rebbe” (a Rabi?) disappears and everyone wonders where he is. He is doing charity work, dressed as a peasant, helping the peasants to have warmth when they are cold. He cuts the wood, lights the fire for the impoverished sick woman. He is followed in his travels by a skeptical Lithuanian Jew. Later when the Lithuanian is asked if the “Rebbe” goes to heaven each day that he leaves, replies, “…if not higher.”
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman.
One-minute review: The grizzled old Cap, who can’t do anything right and who had drunk himself out of his commission in the army, takes over a group of recruits in the town and teaches them to march smartly. Someone jokingly tells him to apply to the army for a commission again. He does. And he is U.S. Grant.
Comment: I wonder if this is true. RayS.
One-minute review: “Charles” is a bad, bad little boy in kindergarten. Laurie tells his mother each day of Charles’s escapades and Laurie’s mother wonders at how bad a child can be. It takes quite a time for Laurie’s mother to learn from the teacher that “Charles” is really Laurie.
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman.
One-minute review: A beautiful little romantic idyll. Behind every happy man, there stands a loving, super-strong little wife who will sink or swim with him and who will bear with him whatever great troubles he might have. A husband makes some bad speculations and is plunged into poverty. His friend urges him to tell his wife so she can support him, but he is afraid to. When, at last, he does tell her, she is transformed into a ravishing beauty who helps keep their newly purchased humble cottage like a castle, and sharing strawberries and cream in the back yard.
75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World’s Literature. Ed. Roger B. Goodman.
