Enjoy this reprint from Joan Aiken’s short story collection The Monkey’s Wedding: and Other Stories  from Small Beer Press.

Reading in Bed

Francis Nastrowski was a young Polish officer. He had once been rich, but was so no longer. Some of the habits of his bygone grandeur still clung to him, however. He was apt to say “Put on my boots” or “Fetch my horse” to whoever was there, even the major, and he was incurably vain, and fond of good wine and reading in bed. Harmless pursuits, one might say, but they nearly led to his downfall.

He was stationed in what had once been the only hotel of a small fishing village. One night when the days drew in, and summer waned, and the tops of the waves began to whiten, he and his friends had a present of burgundy, and on that, together with other, more potent spirits, they managed to become, if not drunk, at least very, very friendly.

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