"Arthur C. Doyle - The Poison Belt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C)

Summerlee had just begun to chirrup like a canary, and Lord John
to get to the climax of his story, when the train drew up at
Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as the station for Rotherfield.

And there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was
glorious. Not all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the
slow, high-stepping dignity with which he paraded his own
railway station and the benignant smile of condescending
encouragement with which he regarded everybody around him. If he
had changed in anything since the days of old, it was that his
points had become accentuated. The huge head and broad sweep of
forehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even
greater than before. His black beard poured forward in a more
impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes, with their insolent
and sardonic eyelids, were even more masterful than of yore.

He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the
head master bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the
others and helped to collect their bags and their cylinders of
oxygen, he stowed us and them away in a large motor-car which was
driven by the same impassive Austin, the man of few words, whom
I had seen in the character of butler upon the occasion of my
first eventful visit to the Professor. Our journey led us up a
winding hill through beautiful country. I sat in front with the
chauffeur, but behind me my three comrades seemed to me to be
all talking together. Lord John was still struggling with his
buffalo story, so far as I could make out, while once again I
heard, as of old, the deep rumble of Challenger and the
insistent accents of Summerlee as their brains locked in high
and fierce scientific debate. Suddenly Austin slanted his
mahogany face toward me without taking his eyes from his
steering-wheel.

"I'm under notice," said he.

"Dear me!" said I.

Everything seemed strange to-day. Everyone said queer, unexpected
things. It was like a dream.

"It's forty-seven times," said Austin reflectively.

"When do you go?" I asked, for want of some better observation.
"I don't go," said Austin.

The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he
came back to it.

"If I was to go, who would look after 'im?" He jerked his head
toward his master. "Who would 'e get to serve 'im?"