A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
Recurring elements in the story’s premise.
A shoemaker accepts a forty-mile running bet while three men follow close behind in a cart.
A retired lieutenant spends a sweltering day condemning the town’s idle natives while his own hours slip away.
Five children turn a forbidden late-night game of loto into a small world of greed, vanity, kindness, quarrels, and sudden sleep.
A banker’s reckless wager condemns a young lawyer to fifteen years of voluntary solitude for a fortune.
A possible lottery win gives a comfortable couple a sudden view of riches—and of each other.
A timid traveler is mistaken for a space-polo expert, then forced into a deadly match with his ship and reputation at stake.
Toby Dammit's habit of betting the Devil his head becomes literal when a stranger accepts the wager at a covered bridge.
A vain French duke dies over a badly served delicacy and challenges the Devil to a card game for his freedom.
A veteran boxer plans to lose the fight that will end his career—but keeping the money may demand one last act of courage.
A daring flirt makes her persistent admirer earn his chance during a wild-boar hunt at a Norman château.
When an ostrich supposedly swallows a priceless diamond aboard ship, five ordinary birds become the stakes in an escalating auction.
After a motor race, a wealthy young Irishman joins his foreign friends for a night of celebration.
A king's cruel rhyme inspires his sister to prove a missing lady's fidelity.
Bingo falls for a revolutionary's daughter and joins her father's cause, even as he bets on a horse owned by his wealthy uncle.
Aunt Agatha wants Bertie to impress a Cabinet minister just as her son decides to punish the man for catching him smoking.
Bertie agrees to house a sheltered young lord in New York, then discovers that the guest has plans his mother never imagined.
Bertie backs a village sermon contest, but the clergy keep upsetting his carefully calculated odds.
Bingo tries to win Mary with a village Christmas show, while a rival and a bookmaker watch his every move.
Bertie and Jeeves back two unlikely contenders at a village sports day, but their bookmaker has plans of his own.
When a devil disguised as a missionary plants a mysterious crop in sixteenth-century Japan, one cattle dealer makes a wager to learn its name.
20 stories
