"William Morrison - Disappointment" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

Disappointment
You just can't stop Horton Perry, the salted nut king, from complaining
about that ultra-scientific son-in-law of his!

THE day was to mark the beginning of the great disappointment of his life, but Horton Perry had no
suspicion of that. He knew only that the man who had just been presented to him as the husband-elect of
his only daughter, was precisely one of those men he had always despised. Even Stewart Payne's
appearance was against him. He was tall, lanky, and dressed in very imperfectly fitting clothes that
seemed to have been slept in. Perry wouldn't have hired him as a nut salesman in fifty years.
Perry himself was of medium height, plump, nattily dressed, and possessed of an air of great
friendliness. He smiled easily, even when he prepared to cut your throat, and he could look you in the
eye, even when preparing to stab you in the back.
Payne, however, couldn't perform either of these feats. He never stared at the person to whom he
was talkingтАФhe always stared through him. The older man noted the strange quality of his gaze, as if
Payne's eyes had the faculty of focusing X-ray images on a peculiar retina that no other human being
could match.
The eyes were a giveaway. Payne poke to the man who was about to become his father-in-law. He
even listened to him, yet all the time he paid him no genuine attention whatever. The secret recesses of his
mind seemed occupied with mysterious problems he shared with no one. It was clear that he was one of
those impractical, absent-minded men with no future prospects that any sensible man would have paid a
cent for. And Horton Perry, who had salted away in his business more than most people would have
guessed, suspected that he was going to be asked to pay much more than a cent. "What are you going to
do for money?" Perry demanded.
Payne looked surprised. "Why, Mr. Perry, I have my salary."
"How much is that?"
"Three thousand dollars a year," said Payne proudly. "I'm an assistant professor, you know."
Perry winced, and his second chin shook with emotion. Three thousand wouldn't keep his daughter in
peanuts, which were the least expensive nut he sold. But Angela herself, a curly-headed blonde with
frivolous features that most people had the habit of associating with an empty head, smiled fondly into
Payne's face, her own expression reflecting his pride. "Stewart won't be an assistant for very long,
Father."
Angela's head was not at all empty, her will could be iron, and on the whole, Perry had long ago
decided that it was more dangerous to argue with her than with his most implacable business enemy. He
did what lawyers called stipulating the point. "How much does a full professor get?" he demanded.
"Well, erтАФ" Payne's face had that faraway look again. "I'm not sure."
"Six thousand dollars a year," said the more practical Angela. "That is, after ten years."

NORTON PERRY tried not to grit his teeth. He knew his daughter, and he could see that she was
as much determined to make this man his son-in-law as he had been determined to make himself the nut
king.
"Look here, Payne," he began, "if you marry Angela, you live on your salary, and not a penny will
you receive for housekeeping. However, I have no objection to putting you in the way of making a
decent income by your own efforts. Assuming, that is, that you are capable of making a decent income at
all."
He seized a bowl of cashews and spoke unexpectedly: "Here, taste these."
Payne took a handful from the top, and chewed as if he were performing an experiment. "Rather flat,"
he said.
 "Angela, you try these pecans."
Angela ate daintily. "Too salty," she answered.
"You're both right," declared Horton Perry. "And right there is my problem. In this day of television,