"Loomis, Charles Battell - While the Automobile Ran Down" - читать интересную книгу автора (Loomis Charles Battell)

Then he joined the crowd of persons who always wait until Christmas Eve before
buying the presents that stern and unpleasant duty makes it necessary to get.
It would impart a characteristic Christmas flavor if it were possible to cover
the ground with snow, and to make the air merry with the sound of flashing belts
of silvery sleighbells on prancing horses; but although Christmases in stories
are always snowy and frosty, and sparkling with ice-crystals, Christmases in
real life are apt to be damp and humid. Let us be thankful that this Christmas
was merely such a one as would not give a ghost of a reason for a trip to
Florida. The mercury stood at 58, and even light overcoats were not things to be
put on without thought.
Orville knew what he wished to get and where it was sold, and so he had an
advantage over ninety-nine out of a hundred of the anxious-looking shoppers who
were scuttling from shop to shop, burdened with bundles, and making the evening
the worst in the year for tired sales girls and men.
Orville's present was not exactly Christmassy, but he hoped that Miss Badeau
would like it, and it was certainly the finest one on the velvet tray. Orville,
it will be seen, was of a sanguine disposition.
He did not hang up his stocking; he had not done that for several years; but he
did dream that Santa Claus brought him a beautiful doll from Paris, and just as
he was saying, "There must be some mistake," the doll turned into Miss Badeau
and said: "No, I'm for you. Merry Christmas!" Then he woke up and thought how
foolish and yet how fascinating dreams are.
Christmas morning was spent in polishing up an old essay on "The Value of the
Summer as an Invigorator." It had long been a habit of his to work over old
stuff on his holidays, and if he was about to marry he would need to sell
everything he had--of a literary-marketable nature. But this morning a vision of
a lovely girl who on the morrow was going to sail thousands of miles away came
between him and the page, and at last he tossed the manuscript into a drawer and
went out for a walk.
It was the draggiest Christmas he had ever known, and the warmest. He dropped in
at the club, but there was hardly any one there; still, he did manage to play a
few games of billiards, and at last the clock announced that it was time to go
home and dress for the Christmas dinner.
It was half-past five when he left the club. It was twenty minutes to six when
he slipped on a piece of orange-peel and measured his length on the sidewalk. He
was able to rise and hobble up the steps on one foot, but the hall-boy had to
help him to the elevator and thence to his room. He dropped upon his bed,
feeling white about the gills.
Orville was a most methodical man. He planned his doings days ahead and seldom
changed his schedule. But it seemed likely that, unless he was built of sterner
stuff than most of the machines called men, he would not run out of the
roundhouse to-night. His fall had given his foot a nasty wrench.
Some engineers, to change the simile, would have argued that the engine was off
the track, and that therefore the train was not in running condition; but
Orville merely changed engines. His own steam having been cut off, he ordered an
automobile for twenty minutes to seven; and after he had bathed and bandaged his
ankle he determined, with a grit worthy of the cause that brought it forth, to
attend that dinner even if he paid for it in the hospital, with Annette as
special nurse.
Old Mr. Nickerson, who lived across the hall, had heard of his misfortune, and