I Read Stories: How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Gnoles by Lord Dunsany

How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Gnoles by Lord Dunsany

Nuth is the foremost practitioner of his art in the world. His art is burglary. He takes on Tommy Tonker as an apprentice.

The details of the likely lad's apprenticeship I do not propose to give; for those that are in the business know those details already, and those that are in other businesses care only for their own, while men of leisure who have no trade at all would fail to appreciate the gradual degrees by which Tommy Tonker came first to cross bare boards, covered with little obstacles in the dark, without making any sound, and then to go silently up creaky stairs, and then to open doors, and lastly to climb.

Together Tonker and Nuth go to the house of the gnoles to steal emeralds and here this light-hearted tale of thieves becomes distinctly weird.

Read This: For a creepy, clever, witty short story, that elevates itself to being more than its punchline by sheer quality and strangeness
Don’t Read This: If reading a couple of pages of mannered Edwardian prose to get to the meat of the story puts you off.