"Laidlaw-Dankden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laidlaw Marc)

(and an insult to toads) to dub "toadlike." Gray-cheeked, with bulging eyes in a
lumpy face, he patiently mopped his countertop with alternate strokes of a
rubber knife and a sponge. Water flew to the floor in sheets; he wrung the
sponge into a bucket. The counter was instantly soaked again, and the bucket
would soon need emptying. He interrupted this futile procedure for a moment when
Gorlen entered, then went back to it.

Gorlen should have left immediately; there was no real point in staying or
stoking the bartender's immediate, obvious hostility. But the blatant fraud, the
howling misrepresentations of the lurid signs outside, spurred both his
indignation and his sense of the absurd. He found the combination irresistible.

Striding across the soft planks, he called on the yellow-clad proprietor: "You,
there! Sir -- if I may call you that? What is the meaning of your bold and
boldly false inducements? I have never seen such a bare-faced bait and switch,
which fools an eager customer for perhaps one hundredth of a second, and gains
you nothing but their ill will in record time."

The innkeeper, if such he was, looked sidelong at a collection of mushroom
growths clustered at the far end of the counter, gray puffs rising on
rust-colored stalks. Gorlen saw suddenly that they were customers, several
blobby souls wrapped in wrinkled gray mold-colored cloaks, hunched on spindly
iron stools and sipping liquor from tall glasses which they guarded with cupped
hands from the more unpredictable leaks. Gorlen sensed that they had heard such
objections before; although they made no sound, from the quivering of their
oddly similar bulks he felt certain they were laughing.

"We're under new management," the toad-man croaked, and at that the laughter
rang outright. "I can't be held responsible for the claims of the previous
owner."

"Very good," Gorlen said, joining with them in laughter. "I see the merit of
your argument. But what would you say if I were to bring your claims more in
line with reality?"

"What d'ye mean by that?"

"I mean I would happily volunteer to remove the signs from your establishment,
which surely serve only to bring unhappy and deluded customers through your
door. The name itself, of course, must remain. I'm sure you paid plenty of auris
for its ironic properties alone, which I cannot help but admire."

"Take down my signs?" the keeper said, Flowering at his customers to shut them
up.

"I thought you said they were the previous owner's signs, and not yours at all."

"I paid for 'em, that makes 'em mine."

"Then I'll bring them straight in, out of harm's way, and even suggest a few