"Poisoned!"

"The Soup That Talked."

By Don Mark Lemon (1877-1961; ISFDb HERE).

First appearance: The Black Cat, June 1907.

Short short short story (2 pages).

Online at SFFAudio (HERE).

   "It was right here in this restaurant that it happened."

SOMETIMES someone's in danger and is completely, blissfully unaware of it; when that's the case, in certain situations it just might be necessary to spell it out . . .

Principal characters:

~ The narrator ("You blamed idiot!"), "a man with a big, ugly scar on his forehead and only one eye" ("accidentally brushed his fork off the table"), and "a meek, smiling little man, in a gray tweed suit" ("I guess I'll take a little soup").

Extra:

  Here's Don Mark Lemon's "The Dunsmuir Will Mystery" in the September 1905 Munsey's Magazine:

Resources:

- Our author, Don Mark Lemon, was a regular contributor to The Black Cat, starting in 1900 and then off and on until 1914, with occasional side trips into Munsey's, All-Story, Argosy, The Scrap Book, The Blue Mule, 10 Story Book, The Bohemian Magazine, The Gray Goose, Short Stories, The Thrill Book, and finishing up in Weird Tales (1923; story online HERE) and Wonder Stories Quarterly (1931; story online HERE). Evidently Lemon didn't use any series characters; from what we've seen so far, he wrote some of his stories in the O. Henry mode, saving a punchy resolution for the end. (FictionMags data.)

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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