I am looking for a story by Robert Benchley and I wonder if you would help me. A favorite childhood memory is of my father reading Benchley aloud to us. One of our family's favorites, one that always resulted in our laughing ourselves out of breath, was his woeful tale of substituting at his wife's afternoon bridge party. I remember the way he described the silence at his table amidst the hum that arose in the room as the players finished their hands and began their postmortems: "at our table there was no postmortem, but not because there had been no death." I have lost this story; I don't remember it's title or what book it is in. Can you help? Sincere best wishes from a life-long Benchley lover, Linda W.
Dear Linda,
Thank you for contacting the Robert Benchley Society. The essay you seek is called "Not According to Hoyle" and appears at page 77 of the book Of All Things. The book is available for purchase through a link to Amazon.com on our website at http://www.robertbenchley.org/shop/index.htm. The work is in the public domain in the United States and is available to view or print out free on our website at http://www.robertbenchley.org/oat/index.htm. Yours, David Trumbull
