Reginald's Christmas Revel is a short story in which Saki's irrepressible narrator recounts a nightmarish Christmas stay with the dreary Babwolds — a humourless hostess, a boorish Major who cannot stop measuring his hunting trophies, and evenings filled with excruciating parlour games. Reginald endures it all with languid wit, slipping away to play wineglass skittles with the page-boy and staging an elaborate fake suicide note to terrorise a fellow guest. The comedy sharpens as the gap widens between the forced festivity around him and Reginald's absolute refusal to pretend it is anything but ghastly.

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