The Terrible Twins

Edgar Alfred Jepson was an English author. He created primarily mainstream adventure and detective fiction. He also wrote supernatural and fantasy stories. As an author, Jepson used a pseudonym, R. Edison Page, for some of his short stories. In other works he collaborated with such authors as John Gawsworth, Arthur Machen and Hugh Clevely. Jepson was also a translator, notably of the Arsène Lupin stories of Maurice Leblanc. He was a member of the Square Club of established Edwardian authors, and one of the more senior members of the New Bohemians drinking club. Jepson edited Vanity Fair magazine for a short period, during which he employed Richard Middleton. After Middleton's death Jepson did much to preserve the latter's memory. Extract: For all that their voices rang high and hot, the Twins were really discussing the question who had hit Stubb's bull-terrier with the greatest number of stones, in the most amicable spirit. It was indeed a nice question and hard to decide since both of them could throw stones quicker, straighter and harder than any one of their size and weight for miles and miles round; and they had thrown some fifty at the bull-terrier before they had convinced that dense, but irritated, quadruped that his master's interests did not really demand his presence in the orchard; and of these some thirty had hit him. Violet Anastasia Dangerfield, who always took the most favorable view of her experience, claimed twenty hits out of a possible thirty; Hyacinth Wolfram Dangerfield, in a very proper spirit, had at once claimed the same number; and both of them were defending their claims with loud vehemence, because if you were not loudly vehement, your claim lapsed. Suddenly Hyacinth Wolfram, as usual, closed the discussion; he said firmly, "I tell you what: we both hit that dog the same number of times." So saying, he swung round the rude calico bag, bulging with booty, which hung from his shoulders, and took from it two Ribston pippins. "Perhaps we did," said Anastasia amiably. They went swiftly down the road, munching in a peaceful silence.