The Baker's Dozen — A Humorous Playlet by Saki
A Widower, a Widow, and Rather Too Many Children
Major Richard Dumbarton and Emily Carewe haven't seen each other in years, not since old grudges and other marriages got in the way. A chance reunion aboard an eastward-bound steamer changes that fast, deck chairs bribed into place and all. But romance runs into arithmetic when the subject of children comes up, and the resulting scramble to make the numbers work is pure Saki mischief. A quick, witty shipboard farce about love, superstition, and creative counting.
Hector Hugh Munro, better known by his pen name Saki, was a British writer active in the early twentieth century, celebrated for short fiction that pairs drawing-room manners with a sly, sometimes wicked wit. His stories favor sudden reversals and characters whose composure cracks under the weight of their own absurdities, whether the setting is a country house, a dinner table, or, here, the deck of an ocean liner. Saki wrote several of his pieces as brief one-act playlets, letting dialogue alone carry the comic timing. He died in 1916, but his stories remain a staple of Edwardian comic fiction for their brevity, their bite, and their refusal to take romance, or superstition, entirely seriously.
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