"C M Kornbluth - The Mindworm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

The doctor told the boy: "Three pounds more this month isn't bad, but how about you pitch in and clean
up your plate every day? Can't live on meat and water; those vegetables make you big and strong."



The boy said: "What's 'neurasthenic' mean?"



The doctor later said to the director: "It made my flesh creep. I was looking at his little spindling body
and dishing out the old pep talk about growing big and strong, and inside my head I was thinkingSve'd
call him neurasthenic in the old days' and then out he popped with it. What should we do? Should we do
anything? Maybe it'll go away. I don't know anything about these things. I don't know whether anybody
does."



"Reads minds, does he?" asked the director. Be damned if he's going to read my mind about Schultz
Meat Market's ten percent. "Doctor, I think I'm going to take my vacation a little early this year. Has
anybody shown any interest in adopting the child?"
"Not him. He wasn't a baby doll when we got him, and at present he's an exceptionally
unattractive-looking kid. You know how people don't give a damn about anything but their looks."



"Some couples would take anything, or so they tell me."



"Unapproved for foster-parenthood, you mean?"



"Red tape and arbitrary classifications sometimes limit us too severely in our adoptions."



"If you're going to wish him on some screwball couple that the courts turned down as unfit, I want no
part of it."



"You don't have to have any part of it, doctor. By the way, which dorm does he sleep in?"



"West," grunted the doctor, leaving the office.