Mrs. Packletide’s Tiger

Mrs. Packletide decides that only a spectacular accomplishment such as shooting a tiger in India will allow her to draw the attention away from her social rival, who has been boasting about a recent aeroplane trip. She offers a reward to anyone who can facilitate this plan, and one Indian village tells her of an old and decrepit tiger in its environs. A trap is set up, so that Mrs Packletide can shoot the tiger without much difficulty or danger. In the end, however, she misses the tiger, but the noise of the gun gives it a heart attack. Mrs Packletide nevertheless makes out that she has shot the tiger and displays its skin in her London house. Her paid companion blackmails her by threatening to reveal the farcical circumstances of the tiger’s death, and with the money buys herself a small house in the country.