In my humble opinion this is one of the best short stories ever written. First published in the October 9, 1942, issue of John O'London's Weekly. Below you can read just the beginning, it might help to wet your appetite to read more of Kersh's wonderful writing.
When something stirs up the bottom of my cup and the bitter grounds get between my teeth; when I am sad and angry, I think of Dudelsack. And so I shall remember him always. He was a strange, forlorn little man. In thick-soled boots he stood four feet seven inches tall. In a wet overcoat he might have weighed ninety pounds. Somehow he had managed to live sixty years. He was grey, small bodied and hairy as a bird-eating spider. Out of his flannel shirt sprang a skinny neck, so tense and sinewy that it might have been an arrangement of wire designed to prevent his head from flying off. Now that I think of it, the top of his skull really did look like the flat, dented dome of a champagne cork. Unhappy Dudelsack, so full of pressure and ferment - there must have been good strong stuff inside him before his jolting journey through Time shook it all to foam......
When something stirs up the bottom of my cup and the bitter grounds get between my teeth; when I am sad and angry, I think of Dudelsack. And so I shall remember him always. He was a strange, forlorn little man. In thick-soled boots he stood four feet seven inches tall. In a wet overcoat he might have weighed ninety pounds. Somehow he had managed to live sixty years. He was grey, small bodied and hairy as a bird-eating spider. Out of his flannel shirt sprang a skinny neck, so tense and sinewy that it might have been an arrangement of wire designed to prevent his head from flying off. Now that I think of it, the top of his skull really did look like the flat, dented dome of a champagne cork. Unhappy Dudelsack, so full of pressure and ferment - there must have been good strong stuff inside him before his jolting journey through Time shook it all to foam......
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