and Other Stories It was a child , rain0washed 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 north the Bristol channe. in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stage . For those of you who love animals with strong, individual personalities and characters who are seen as either eccentric or plain crazy, depending on their socio/economic heritage, this is the collection of short stories for you. From Sredni Vashtar, "the great ferret", to naughty Nicholas in The Lumber Room, each of the well developed short story texts is a minimalists masterpiece, and in each of the individual short stories the reader is given more than an ample serving of Saki's skill of simultaneous character and plot development that invariably lead to absurdly histerical, yet wildly believable conclusions.