Robert Barr - A Short Story Collection

By Robert Barr

Robert Barr was born in Glasgow, Scotland on the 16th September 1849. Five years later the family emigrated to a farm near Muirkirk in Upper Canada.

His early years were uneventful as the family settled into their new lives and Barr began his education.

A career path as a teacher opened up for him and, by 1874, he had been appointed as headmaster at the Central School at Windsor. Concurrently he also wrote travel and humourous articles for magazines. Within two years their success in the regional periodicals encouraged him to change careers to become a reporter and columnist.

In August 1876, at age 27, he married Eva Bennett and they began a family.

A half decade later he was the exchange editor of the ‘Free Press’ but decided to relocate to London to establish an English edition and to write fiction, which both met with much success.

Over the years he was a prolific writer and in 1892, along with Jerome K Jerome, he established ‘The Idler’ magazine and, just after the turn of the century, became its sole proprietor.

Although a number of his crime novels and short stories are parodies on Sherlock Holmes and other best-selling detectives of the time, he also wrote short stories across a whole range of subjects and genres usually with intriguing ideas and many laced with wit and humour.

Robert Barr died at his home in Woldingham, Surrey of heart disease on the 21st October 1912. He was 63.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Mar 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781835474587

Robert Barr

Robert Barr (1849–1912) was a Scottish Canadian author of novels and short stories. Born in Glasgow, Barr moved with his family to Toronto, where he was educated at the Toronto Normal School. After working for the Detroit Free Press, he moved to London and cofounded the Idler with Jerome K. Jerome in 1892. Barr went on to become a popular and prolific author of crime fiction.

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Robert Barr- A Short Story Collection

Robert Barr was born in Glasgow, Scotland on the 16th September 1849.  Five years later the family emigrated to a farm near Muirkirk in Upper Canada.

His early years were uneventful as the family settled into their new lives and Barr began his education.

A career path as a teacher opened up for him and, by 1874, he had been appointed as headmaster at the Central School at Windsor.  Concurrently he also wrote travel and humourous articles for magazines.  Within two years their success in the regional periodicals encouraged him to change careers to become a reporter and columnist.

In August 1876, at age 27, he married Eva Bennett and they began a family.

A half decade later he was the exchange editor of the ‘Free Press’ but decided to relocate to London to establish an English edition and to write fiction, which both met with much success.

Over the years he was a prolific writer and in 1892, along with Jerome K Jerome, he established ‘The Idler’ magazine and, just after the turn of the century, became its sole proprietor.

Although a number of his crime novels and short stories are parodies on Sherlock Holmes and other best-selling detectives of the time, he also wrote short stories across a whole range of subjects and genres usually with intriguing ideas and many laced with wit and humour.

Robert Barr died at his home in Woldingham, Surrey of heart disease on the 21st October 1912.  He was 63.

Index of Contents

Purification

The Vengeance of the Dead

The Sixth Bench

Within An Ace of the End of the World

An Alpine Divorce

Purification

Eugene Caspilier sat at one of the metal tables of the Cafe Egalite, allowing the water from the carafe to filter slowly through a lump of sugar and a perforated spoon into his glass of absinthe. It was not an expression of discontent that was to be seen on the face of Caspilier, but rather a fleeting shade of unhappiness which showed he was a man to whom the world was being unkind. On the opposite side of the little round table sat his friend and sympathising companion, Henri Lacour. He sipped his absinthe slowly, as absinthe should be sipped, and it was evident that he was deeply concerned with the problem that confronted his comrade.

Why, in Heaven's name, did you marry her? That, surely, was not necessary.

Eugene shrugged his shoulders. The shrug said plainly, Why, indeed? Ask me an easier one.

For some moments there was silence between the two. Absinthe is not a liquor to be drunk hastily, or even to be talked over too much in the drinking. Henri did not seem to expect any other reply than the expressive shrug, and each man consumed his beverage dreamily, while the absinthe, in return for this thoughtful consideration, spread over them its benign influence, gradually lifting from their minds all care and worry, dispersing the mental clouds that hover over all men at times, thinning the fog until it disappeared, rather than rolling the vapour away, as the warm sun dissipates into invisibility the opaque morning mists, leaving nothing but clear air, all round, and a blue sky overhead.

A man must live, said Caspilier at last; and the profession of decadent poet is not a lucrative one. Of course there is undying fame in the future, but then we must have our absinthe in the present. Why did I marry her, you ask? I was the victim of my environment. I must write poetry; to write poetry, I must live; to live, I must have money; to get money, I was forced to marry. Valdoreme is one of the best pastry-cooks in Paris; is it my fault, then, that the Parisians have a greater love for pastry than for poetry? Am I to blame that her wares are more sought for at her shop than are mine at the booksellers'? I would willingly have shared the income of the shop with her without the folly of marriage, but Valdoreme has strange, barbaric notions which were not overturnable by civilised reason. Still my action was not wholly mercenary, nor indeed mainly so. There was a rhythm about her name that pleased me. Then she is a Russian, and my country and hers were at that moment in each other's arms, so I proposed to Valdoreme that we follow the national example. But, alas! Henri, my friend, I find that even ten years' residence in Paris will not eliminate the savage from the nature of a Russian. In spite of the name that sounds like the soft flow of a rich mellow wine, my wife is little better than a barbarian. When I told her about Tenise, she acted like a mad woman—drove me into the streets.

But why did you tell her about Tenise?

"Pourquoi? How I hate that word! Why! Why!! Why!!! It dogs one's actions like a bloodhound, eternally yelping for a reason. It seems to me