Mrs. Packletide
The main character of this short story is high society dame from Edwardian England whose life is basically spent trying to one-up her nemesis. She is usually accompanied by her paid companion and the story revolves around a turning point in the lives of these three women who are none of them exactly what they seem. Mrs. Packletide’s latest ambition in her ongoing game of one-upmanship is to travel to India and shoot a tiger. Things don’t go exactly as planned.
Loona Bimberton
Anyone who has ever read Jeeves and Wooster stories or enjoyed the BBC series with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie will recognize exactly the time and place in society enjoyed by Loona Bimberton. Hers is a name and character that would fit quite comfortably alongside Honoria Glossop and Barmy Fotheringay Phipps. The stimulant for Mrs. Packletide’s tiger-hunting trip is Loona Bimberton’s most recent one-upmanship of the title character: eleven miles of flight alongside an Algerian aviator. Keep in mind the story was written within a decade of the Wright Brothers little foray to Kitty Hawk, so that was kind of a big deal.
The Tiger
The titular tiger is every bit as much an oddball character as the humans. To say too much would destroy the delight of reading the story, but suffice to say that rumors of his death by gunshot are hugely exaggerated. He winds up in a most humiliating way: a rug made of skin.
Louisa Mebbin
Although both Packletide and the tiger enjoy the honor of shared co-starring in the title and Loona Bimberton is significant mostly because of not really being on stage, as it were, the real protagonist when all is said and done is that paid companion of the wealthy but not so wise Mrs. Packletide. The story winds up being a lesson in underestimation of underlings and the only character who actually winds up benefiting in any serious way from the competition between the two flighty society dames is Miss Mebbin.
