Man from the south door Roald Dahl

Summary:
The story is told by a man who has experienced it. He is sitting at the swimming pool in Jamaica and saw an old, little man walking around the pool. He was dressed in a white suit and was walking very quickly with little bouncing strides. The little man stopped beside the other man and asked if he may sit here. Suddenly one of the American cadets, who were swimming there, was standing in front of us with one of the English girls. The little man offered cigarettes. The boy and the girl didn’t want one, but the man took one. The American boy wanted to give him a lighter but the little man said that it won’t work with this wind. The American boy kept on saying that it never failed, so the little man wanted to make a little bet: he must light the lighter ten times without failing once. The little man puts up his Cadillac and asks the boy to put up his left little finger. The boy needs to think about it, but he glanced at the English girl and says the bat is on. The little man asked the man to referee and the girl to watch. They go to the annexe of the little man and when they are there the maid knocked on the door. He told her to get him tree things for their little game: some nails, a hammer and a shopping knife. After the maid brought the things they began. He takes a table and a chair and began to hammer the nails into the top of the table. The boy started to light the lighter while the man counts. By eight the door opened and a small, black-haired women came in, shouting ‘Carlos’. She takes the chopper, threw it on the bed, seized the little man and began to shake him very vigorously. The woman apologise and says the little man is a menace. She said that he has taken already a forty-seven fingers from different people and lost eleven cars. She also said that Carlos hasn’t got a thing. When she takes the key on the table, I see that her hand had only one finger on it, and a thumb.

Evaluation:
This is a really special and rather weird story. It’s confusing because the persons in the story haven’t got a name, so you easy mix them up. First it’s an innocent bet and than it becomes a horror story where a man cuts off different people fingers and even his wife her fingers.