One of my favorite 12 year old Cooked (Shu) Pu-Erh on deck and a fresh Taiwan Oolong for Robbie.
Last trip's travel book .. an interesting read if Hammet is your cup of tea. I re-read his first published short story with tea before setting out this am.
Short Story
From one, Dashil Hammit, 1922: 'TheParthian shot'
… this short story appears on page 68
Part Two: 1922, New Writer
First published in the Smart Set, 1922
When THE BOY WAS six months old Paulette Key acknowledged that her hopes and efforts had been futile, that the baby was indubitably and irremediably a replica of its father. She could have endured the physical resemblance, but the duplication of Harold Key’s stupid obstinacy-unmistakable in the fixity of the child’s inarticulate demands for its food, its toys-was too much for Paulette. She knew she could not go on living with two such natures! A year and a half of Harold’s domination had not subdued her entirely. She took the little boy to church, had him christened Don, sent him home by his nurse, and boarded a train for the West.
PARTING SHOT - "'You wound, like Parthian, while you fly, And kill with a retreating eye.' Samuel Butler, Hudibras (1678). A final insult hurled as one is leaving, or the last word in an argument. Most writers believe that this expression is a distortion of 'Parthian shot,' although there is no firm evidence to support this etymology. It alludes to a practice of the ancient Parthians, who lived southeast of the Caspian Sea and whose empire at one time (first century B.C.) stretched from the Euphrates River eastward to the Indus River and from Oxus to the Indian Ocean. Mentioned in the Bible (Acts 1:9), they were renowned archers and horsemen and were known for their practice of turning in flight (either real or pretended to lure followers) to discharge their arrows at the pursuing enemy." From "Fighting Words: From War, Rebellion, and other Combative Capers" by Christine Ammer (NTC Publishing Group, Chicago, Ill., 1989, 1999).
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