Here is a delightful collection of short fiction by the quirky, off-beat writer and composer Lord Berners. With dark, razor-sharp wit and spare distinctive prose, Berners offers us an unforgettable set of characters including Cleopatra, composer Emanuel Smith (supposedly William Walton), Emmeline Pocock, who "looked like a nymph in one of the less licentious pictures of Fragonard," and Mr. Pidger, a Pomeranian with an incisive bark and an agitated soul. These short works are triumphs of dry irony and glorious absurdity.