"Lewis Padgett - A Gnome There Was (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Padgett Lewis)

A GNOME THERE WAS
by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)
version 1.0
Scanned from Line to Tomorrow (Bantam Books, August 1954) by drOrlof
First published in Unknown Worlds, October 1941 (ed. John W. Campbell, Jr)


TIM CROCKETT should never have sneaked into the mine on Dornsef Mountain. What
is winked at in California may have disastrous results in the coal mines of
Pennsylvania. Especially when gnomes are involved.
Not that Tim Crockett knew about the gnomes. He was just investigating
conditions among the lower classes, to use his own rather ill-chosen words. He
was one of a group of southern Californians who had decided that labor needed
them. They were wrong. They needed laborтАФat least eight hours of it a day.
Crockett, like his colleagues, considered the laborer a combination of a
gorilla and The Man with the Hoe, probably numbering the Kallikaks among his
ancestors. He spoke fierily of downtrodden minorities, wrote incendiary
articles for the group's organ, Earth, and deftly maneuvered himself out of
entering his father's law office as a clerk. He had, he said, a mission.
Unfortunately, he got little sympathy from either the workers or their
oppressors.
A psychologist could have analyzed Crockett easily enough. He was a tall,
thin, intense-looking young man, with rather beady little eyes, and a nice
taste in neckties. All he needed was a vigorous kick in the pants.
But definitely not administered by a gnome!
He was junketing through the country, on his father's money, investigating
labor conditions, to the profound annoyance of such laborers as he
encountered. It was with this idea in mind that he surreptitiously got into
the Ajax coal mineтАФor, at least, one shaft of itтАФafter disguising himself as a
miner and rubbing his face well with black dust. Going down in the lift, he
looked singularly untidy in the
midst of a group of well-scrubbed faces. Miners look dirty only after a day's
work.
Dornsef Mountain is honeycombed, but not with the shafts of the Ajax Company.
The gnomes have ways of blocking their tunnels when humans dig too close. The
whole place was a complete confusion to Crockett. He let himself drift along
with the others, till they began to work. A filled car rumbled past on its
tracks. Crockett hesitated, and then sidled over to a husky specimen who
seemed to have the marks of a great sorrow stamped on his face.
"Look," he said, "I want to talk to you."
"Inglis?" asked the other inquiringly. "Viskey. Chin. Vine. Hell."
Having thus demonstrated his somewhat incomplete command of English, he
bellowed hoarsely with laughter and returned to work, ignoring the baffled
Crockett, who turned away to find another victim. But this section of the mine
seemed deserted. Another loaded car rumbled past, and Crockett decided to see
where it came from. He found out, after banging his head painfully and falling
flat at least five times.
It came from a hole in the wall. Crockett entered it, and simultaneously heard
a hoarse cry from behind him. The unknown requested Crockett to come back.
"So I can break your slab-sided neck," he promised, adding a stream of