"Avram Davidson - Blunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

Miss Stuart said, "According to her, Not If He's the Very Last Man on Earth."

"'She does not regard herself, nor yet wish to be regarded, in that bony
light,'" Dr. Wallop murmured, sneaking his hand onto Miss Stuart's kneecap. Miss
Stuart giggled.

Dr. Slide confided to Sam Mcintyre that he'd been on the point of suggesting to
That Crazy Fool to join the Brethren, but not anymore.

A Bo's'n's Mate named Blascovitch got roaring drunk and hammered at the door of
the bungalow one night, demanding his appendix back.

Church and State, appealed to by Mr. Swanson To Do Something, declined to do
anything. Chaplain Meyers, with a far-off look in his eye, said something about
Samson in the Old Dispensation having made a similar collection. Chief of Police
Elsworth Smith didn't know of any law against it.

Blunt himself, vexed at the whole affair, put in for sea duty once more, and Dr.
West once more refused to approve. Blunt, he patiently repeated, was Much Too
Valuable a Man. Wilma, of course, couldn't stay on after that. It seemed that
Huey was doomed once more to wander lonely as a cloud: but instead, he came into
his own, at last, as a fully rounded "character"; a fabulous personality who was
known to and talked about by everyone on the Station. In a matter of days he
became famous in Naval aviation installations all along the coast and in bases
in Cuba, the Bahamas, and the West Indies. Eventually his fame became a legend,
as it spread in widening circles, until he lost his name and entered mythology.
The closet became part of it, too.

"This old Pay Clerk," any sailor you care to name might be saying in a bull
session, "was supposed to pay off the whole Ship's Company of this battle wagon
in dry dock. Only whiles he was coming aboard he kind of stumbled and the whole
suitcase full of money fell open. Well, they pumped that dry dock what I mean
dry, but they never could find only a part of the money. Course, he drew a Court
and they retired him, but, funny thing, long about six months later he opened up
the biggest damn bar and grill in Honolulu. And everybody was real surprised
because he never had the reputation of being a saver. It just goes to show, you
never know."

"Reminds me," someone else was sure to say, sooner or later, "of this old Chief
Pharmacist's Mate, he --"

"Oh, yeah! Y' mean the one who --"

"Hey, you wanna tell this story?...Well, like I was saying..,

"And his wife," the story wound up, "she took off an' never come back; and they
say that she never would open another closet door again unless someone else was
in the room! .... It just goes to show."

But by that time Blunt had been obliged to hire Harold, the Sick Bay porter, as