"Adams, Douglas - Dirk Gently 01 - Holistic Detective Agency" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Douglas)

Around the table several gazes stiffened on him.
'Computers,' he heard somebody whisper dismissively to a neighbour
further down the table. The stiff gazes relaxed again, and turned
away.
'Excellent,' said Reg. 'I'm so pleased for you, so pleased.'
'Tell me,' he went on, and it was a moment before Richard realised
that the Professor wasn't talking to him any more, but had turned to
the right to address his other neighbour, 'what's all this about,
this,' he flourished a vague hand over the candles and college silver,
'...stuff?'
His neighbour, an elderly wizened figure, turned very slowly and
looked at him as if he was rather annoyed at being raised from the dead
like this.
'Coleridge,' he said in a thin rasp, 'it's the Coleridge Dinner you
old fool.' He turned very slowly back until he was facing the front
again. His name was Cawley, he was a Professor of Archaeology and
Anthropology, and it was frequently said of him, behind his back, that
he regarded it not so much as a serious academic study, more as a
chance to relive his childhood.
'Ah, is it,' murmured Reg, 'is it?' and turned back to Richard.
'It's the Coleridge Dinner,' he said knowledgeably. 'Coleridge was a
member of the college, you know,' he added after a moment. 'Coleridge.
Samuel Taylor. Poet. I expect you've heard of him. This is his Dinner.
Well, not literally, of course. It would be cold by now.' Silence.
'Here, have some salt.'
'Er, thank you, I think I'll wait,' said Richard, surprised. There
was no food on the table yet.
'Go on, take it,' insisted the Professor, proffering him the heavy
silver salt cellar.
Richard blinked in bemusement but with an interior shrug he reached
to take it. In the moment that he blinked, however, the salt cellar had
completely vanished.
He started back in surprise.
'Good one, eh?' said Reg as he retrieved the missing cruet from
behind the ear of his deathly right-hand neighbour, provoking a
surprisingly girlish giggle from somewhere else at the table. Reg
smiled impishly. 'Very irritating habit, I know. It's next on my list
for giving up after smoking and leeches.'
Well, that was another thing that hadn't changed. Some people pick
their noses, others habitually beat up old ladies on the streets. Reg's
vice was a harmless if peculiar one -- an addiction to childish
conjuring tricks. Richard remembered the first time he had been to see
Reg with a problem -- it was only the normal /Angst/ that periodically
takes undergraduates into its grip, particularly when they have essays
to write, but it had seemed a dark and savage weight at the time. Reg
had sat and listened to his outpourings with a deep frown of
concentration, and when at last Richard had finished, he pondered
seriously, stroked his chin a lot, and at last leaned forward and
looked him in the eye.
'I suspect that your problem,' he said, 'is that you have too many