"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

STORIES BY R.A. LAFFERTY PART 2

*45. Camels and Dromedaries, Clem
*46. The Ultimate Creature
47. How They Gave It Back
50. McGruder's Marvels
51. This Grand Carcass Yet
*52. Maybe Jones and the City
*53. One At a Time
55. Cliffs That Laughed
56. Configuration of the North Shore
59. Ride a Tin Can
61. Crocodile
*62. About a Secret Crocodile
63. The Cliff Climbers
66. Condillac's Statue
67. Entire and Perfect Chrysolite
*68. Continued On Next Rock
69. Old Foot Forgot
*70. All Pieces of a River Shore
*71. Interurban Queen
*72. Frog On the Mountain


CAMELS AND DROMEDARIES, CLEM

"Greeks and Armenians, Clem. Condors and buzzards."
"Samoyeds and Malemutes, Clem. Galena and molybdenite."
Oh here, here! What kind of talk is that?
That is definitive talk. That is fundamental talk. There is no other
kind of talk that will bring us to the core of this thing.
Clem Clendenning was a traveling salesman, a good one. He had
cleared $35,000 the previous year. Lie worked for a factory in a midwestern
town. The plant produced a unique product, and Clem sold it over one-third
of the nation.
Things were going well with him. Then a little thing happened, and
it changed his life completely.
Salesmen have devices by which they check and double-check. One
thing they do when stopping at hotels in distant towns; they make sure
they're registered. This sounds silly, but it isn't. A salesman will get
calls from his home office and it is important that the office be able to
locate him. Whenever Clem registered at a hotel he would check back after
several hours to be sure that they had him entered correctly. He would call
in from somewhere, and he would ask for himself. And it sometimes did happen
that he was told he was not registered. At this Clem would always raise a
great noise to he sure that they had him straight thereafter.
Arriving in a town this critical day, Clem had found himself
ravenously hungry and tired to his depths. Both states were unusual to him.
He went to a grill and ate gluttonously for an hour, so much so that people
stared at him. He ate almost to the point of apoplexy. Then he taxied to the