Mrs. Packletide intended to shoot a tiger. Not that the desire to kill had suddenly come to her, or that she felt she would leave India safer with one wild beast less. It was because Loona Bimberton had recently taken a plane to the forest and killed a tiger, and the newspapers showed photographs of Loona Bimberton with a tiger-skin on. In a world supposed to be moved by hunger and by love, Mrs. Packletide’s movements were largely governed by dislike of Loona Bimberton.

Circumstances proved favorable. Mrs. Packletide had offered a thousand rupees (印度卢比) for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without risk or effort, and it happened that an old tiger was frequently coming to a neighboring village at night. He was so old that he couldn’t kill animals in the wild and just satisfied his appetite to the smaller household animals. The villagers were eager to earn the thousand rupees; children were posted night and day in the jungle to watch the tiger, and the cheap goats were left about to keep him from going elsewhere. The one great fear was that he should die of old age before the day of Mrs. Packletide’s shoot.

The great night arrived. A platform had been built in a tree, on which sat Mrs. Packletide and her paid companion, Miss Mebbin. A goat with a loud bleat (咩咩叫) was tied down at the correct distance. With an accurate gun, they waited for the coming of the tiger.

“I suppose we are in some danger?” said Miss Mebbin.

She was not actually nervous about the wild beast, but she was unwilling to perform a bit more service than she had been paid for.

“It’s a very old tiger. It couldn’t spring up here even if it wanted to.” said Mrs. Packletide.

Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of the old tiger. He saw the goat, and lay on the earth for a short rest before attacking.

The gun fired very loudly, and the great yellow beast jumped to one side and then rolled over in the stillness of death. In a moment a crowd of excited villagers appeared on the scene, and their shouting carried the glad news to the village.

It was Miss Mebbin who found that the goat was dying from a bullet-wound, while no wound could be found on the tiger. Evidently the wrong animal had been hit, and the tiger had died of heart-failure, caused by the sudden loud noise of the gun. Mrs. Packletide was annoyed at the discovery; but anyway, she owned a dead tiger, and the villagers, anxious for their thousand rupees, gladly accepted the fiction that she had shot the tiger. And Miss Mebbin was a paid companion. Therefore Mrs. Packletide faced the cameras with a light heart, and her pictures appeared on the newspapers of England and America. As for Loona Bimberton, she refused to look at a newspaper for weeks, and was in a depressed emotion for quite some time.

Mrs. Packletide’s tiger-skin was inspected and admired by the neighbors, and Mrs. Packletide went to the Costume Ball in the character of Diana (狩猎女神).

“How amused everyone would be if they knew what really happened,” said Miss Mebbin a few days after the ball.

“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Packletide quickly.

“How you shot the goat and frightened the tiger to death,” said Miss Mebbin, with her unpleasant laugh.

“No one would believe it,” said Mrs. Packletide, her face changing color rapidly.

“Loona Bimberton would,” said Miss Mebbin.

Mrs. Packletide’s face settled on greenish white. “You surely wouldn’t give me away?” she asked.

“I’ve seen a weekend cottage near Dorking,” said Miss Mebbin, “six hundred and eighty. Quite a bargain, only I don’t happen to have the money.”

Miss Mebbin possessed the pretty weekend cottage. Mrs. Packletide lost interest in animal-hunting.

“The extra expenses are so heavy,” she said to inquiring friends.