"Date of publication 2083 AD" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

wants more money."
"It was really funny." If she could ignore his conversation he could ignore hers
right back. That was one of the unfortunate things, she realized, that marriage
taught a man. "You know that vacant lot with the broken fence, where the kids
play? Know who I saw playing baseball there today?"
"James, of course. But, Bill, Barbara saidЧ"
"James was pitching. But you'll never guess who was catching."
Bill was being silly, just like the big baby he was. At his age, to think that a
children's baseball game was important! But she didn't mind humoring him. She
guessed, "That big puffy-faced boy from down the street, with the hair so blond
it's almost invisible?"
"No." He leaned back, waiting for her to guess again.
"I'm sure I haven't any idea who it was," she said. "But does it matter?
According to BarbaraЧ"
"It was Reardon, the cop. You know, the one with the stomach."
"Reardon?" She stared at him. "Why, he's been chasing them off that lot every
day. He hates kids. You must be mistaken."
"I'm not mistaken. He was catching there, acting like a kid himself, when who
should come along out of a police car but Lieutenant Puffinger from the local
precinct.
Well, you should have heard him when he saw what Reardon was doing. I'll bet
those kids learned a few words they didn't know before. It seems that Reardon
hadn't made his call from the street box and the cars were scouting around
trying to find out what had become of him. And here he was playing baseball!"
"Imagine that!" said Carrie. But her heart was still elsewhere. She said,
"Barbara says ..."
So they talked of how much money to send' Barbara. And Carrie thought that
nobody could tell her how to manage a husband. You pretended to listen to him
and whatever he said you let go in one ear and out the other, while you kept
your mind on the really important thing. But she was to remember Reardon later.

The next day there was a rumpus at the school. What happened there was even more
incredible than the doings of Reardon. The local Superintendent was proud of his
neatly operated educational system, and had set that date for showing around a
group of distinguished visitors.
Neither the newspapers nor Carrie ever managed to get straight at exactly what
point things had begun to go wrong. When they tried to trace the events of that
day practically all the distinguished visitors, including two college
presidents, the president of the Board of Education, a Professor of Educational
Psychology and two heads of Normal Schools gave different and conflicting
stories.
What did come out, however, was that all six visitors had distinguished
themselves in a quite unexpected way. They had run around the school madly
waving torches and yelling, "Down with school! Down with school! Burn the place
down!"
The firemen had arrived in time to prevent much damage but the incendiaries had
been rounded up only with great difficulty after school had been dismissed. The
President of the Board of Education had beaten up the Superintendent and the two
college presidents had ganged up on one of the hastily summoned policemen. Later
on they could give no reason for why they had done so.