"Michael Ende - Momo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ende Michael)

It then emerged that Nino had only been paying Salvatore back for another joke. He'd woken up
one morning to find some words daubed on the tavern door in bright red paint. They read: THIS INN IS
OUT. Nino had found that just as unamusing.
The two of them spent some time wrangling over whose had been the better joke. Then, after
working themselves up into a lather again, they broke off.
Momo was staring at them wide-eyed, but neither man quite knew how to interpret her gaze.
Was she secretly laughing at them, or was she sad? Although her expression gave no clue, they suddenly
seemed to see themselves mirrored in her eyes and began to feel sheepish.
"Okay," said Salvatore, "maybe I shouldn't have painted those words on your door, Nino, but I
wouldn't have done it if you hadn't refused to serve me so much as a single glass of wine. That was
against the law, as you know full well. I've always paid up, and you'd no call to treat me that way."
 "Oh, hadn't I just!" Nino retorted. "What about the St Anthony business? Ah, that's floored you,
hasn't it! You cheated me right, left and centre, and I wasn't going to take it lying down."
"I cheated you?" Salvatore protested, smiting his brow. "You've got it the wrong way around. It
was you that tried to cheat me, but you didn't succeed."
The fact was, Nino had hung a picture of St Anthony on the wall of the bar-room -- a clipping
from an illustrated magazine which he had cut out and framed. Salvatore offered to buy this picture one
day, ostensibly because he found it so beautiful. By dint of skillful haggling, Nino had persuaded
Salvatore to part with a radio in exchange, laughing up his sleeve to think that Salvatore was getting the
worst of the bargain.
After the deal had been struck, it turned out that nestling between the picture and its cardboard
backing was a banknote of which Nino had known nothing. Discovering that he had been outsmarted,
Nino angrily demanded the money back because it hadn't been included in the bargain. Salvatore refused
to hand it over, whereupon Nino refused to serve him any more, and that was how it had all begun.
Once they had traced their vendetta back to its original cause, the men fell silent for a while.
Then Nino said, "Be honest, Salvatore, did you or didn't you know about that money before we
made the deal?"
"Of course I knew, or I wouldn't have gone through with it."
"In other words, you diddled me."
"What? You mean you really didn't know about the money?"
"No, I swear I didn't."
"There you are, then! It was you that tried to diddle me, or you wouldn't have taken my radio in
exchange for a worthless scrap of newsprint."
"How did you know about the money?"
"I saw another customer tuck it into the back as a thank-you to St Anthony, a couple of nights
before."
Nino chewed his lip. "Was it a lot of money?"
"Only what my radio was worth," said Salvatore.
"I see," Nino said thoughtfully. "So that's what all this is about -- a clipping from a magazine."
Salvatore scratched his head. "I guess so," he growled. "You're welcome to have it back, Nino."
"Certainly not," Nino replied with dignity. "A deal's a deal. We shook hands on it, after all."
Quite suddenly, they both burst out laughing. Clambering down the stone steps, they met in the
middle of the grassy arena, exchanged bear-hugs and slapped each other on the back. Then they hugged
Momo and thanked her profusely.
When they left a few minutes later, Momo stood waving till they were out of sight. She was glad
her two friends had made up.

Another time, a little boy brought her his canary because it wouldn't sing. Momo found that a far
harder proposition. She had to sit and listen to the bird for a whole week before it started to trill and
warble again.