"By the Falls by Harry Harrison" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

serious and impressive. He turned pages until he came to
a piece of very ordinary paper.
"I found this on the shore. During the winter. No one
had been here for months. It may have come over The
Falls. Now I'm not saying it did--but it is possible. You
will agree it is possible?"
"Oh, yes--quite possible. How else could it have come
here?" Carter reached out and touched it. "I agree, or-
dinary paper. Torn on one edge, wrinkled where it was
wet and then dried." He turned it over. "There is lettering
on the other 'aide."
"Yes. But it is meaningless. It is no word I know."
"Nor I, and I speak four languages. Could it have a
meaning?"
"Impossible. A word like that."
"No human language." He shaped his lips 'and spoke
the letters aloud. "Aich--Eee--Ell--Pea."
"What could HELP mean," Bodum shouted, louder
than ever. "A child scribbled it. Meaningless." He seized
the paper and crumpled it and threw it into the fire.
"You'll want to write a story about me," he said proud-
ly. "I have 'been here over forty years, and if there is one
man in the entire world who is an authority on The Falls
it is me.
"I know everything that there is to know about them."