"Henry Kuttner - See You Later UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

"Dullards!" Grandpaw said, real mad. "Rapscallions! Certes, y-wist it was no wonder I was having bad dreams. Saunk, you've put your foot in it now. Have you no sense of process? Didn't you realize what this caitiff schmo was planning, the stinkard? Get in the groove, Saunk, ere manhood's state shall find thee unprepared." Then he added something in Sanskrit. Living as long as Grandpaw has, he gits mixed up in his talk sometimes.

"Now, Grandpaw," Maw thunk, "what's Saunk been and done?"

"You've all done it!" Grandpaw yelled. "Couldn't you add cause and effect? Saunk, what of the picture y-wrought in Yancey's pulp mag? Wherefore hys sodien change of herte, when obviously the stinkard hath no more honor than a lounge lizard? Do you want the world depopulated before its time? Ask Yancey what he's got in his britches pocket, dang you!"

"Mr. Yancey," I said, "what have you got hi your britches pocket?" ,,

"Hey?" he said, reaching down and hauling out a big, rusty monkey wrench. "You mean this? I picked it up back of the shed." He was looking real sly.

"What you aiming to do with that?" Maw asked, quick.

Yancey give us all a mean look. "Ain't no harm telling you," he said. "I aim to hit everybody, every durn soul in the whole, entire world, right smack on top of the haid, and you promised to help me do it."

"Lawks a-mercy," Maw said.

"Yes, siree," Yancey giggled. "When you hex me, I'm a-gonna be in every place everybody else is, standing right behind 'em. I'll whang 'em good. Thataway, I kin be sure 111 git even. One of them people is just bound to be the feller I want, and he'll git what I been owing him for thutty years."

"What feller?" I said. "You mean the one you met up with in New York you was telling me about? I figgered you just owed him some money."

"Never said no sech thing," Yancey snapped. "A debt s a debt, be it money or a bust in the haid. Ain't nobody a-gonna step on my corn and git away with it, thutty years or no thutty years."

"He stepped on your corn?" Paw asked. "That's all be done?"

"Yup. I was likkered up at the time, but I recollect I went down some stairs to where a lot of trains was rushing around under the ground."

"You was drunk."

"I sure was," Yancey said. "Couldn't be no sech thingЧtrains running underground! But I sure as shooting wasn't dreaming 'bout the feller what stepped on my corn. Why, I kin still feel it. I got mad. It was so crowded I couldn't even move for a mite, and I never even got a good look at the feller what stepped on me.

"By the time I hit out with my stick, he must of got away. Never knew what he looked like. Might have been a female, but that don't signify. I just ain't a-gonna die till I pay my debts and git even with everybody what ever done me dirt. I allus got even with every dang soul what done me wrong, and most everybody I ever met did."

Riled up a whole lot was Yancey Tarbell. He went right on from there:

"So I figgered, since I never found out just who this feller was what stepped on my corn, I better make downright sure and take a lick at everybody, man, woman, and child."

"Now you hold your hosses," I said. "Ain't no children could have been alive thutty years ago, an' you know it."

"Makes no difference," Yancey snapped. "I was a-think-ing, and I got an awful idea: suppose that feller went and died. Thutty years is a long time. But then I figgered, even if he did up and die, chances are he got married and had kids fust. Ifn I can't git even with him, I kin get even with his children. The sins of the fatherЧthat's Scripture. If'n I hit everybody in the world, I can't go fur wrong."

"You ain't hitting no Hogbens," Maw said. "None of us been in New York since afore you was born. I mean, we ain't never been there. So you kin just leave us out of it. How'd you like to git a million dollars instead? Or maybe you want to git young again or something like that? We kin fix that for you instead, if you'll give up this here wicked idea."

"I ain't a-gonna," Yancey said, stubborn. "You give your gospel word to help me."

"Well, we ain't bound to keep a promise like that," Maw said, but then Grandpaw chimed in from the attic.

"The Hogben word is sacred," he told us. "It's our bond. We must keep our promise to this booby. But, having kept it, we are not bound further."

"Oh?" I said, sort of gitting a thought. "That being the caseЧMr. Yancey, just what did we promise, exact?"