"gp46w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

has not seen the outer world for half a century. It was so different,
and yet it was much the same. He had seen a missionary, a layreader,
come intoxicated into a council of chiefs. The chiefs did not show that
they knew his condition till he forced them to do so. Then two of the
young men rose, suddenly pinned him in their arms, carried him out, and
tied him in a lodge. The next morning they sent him out of their
country. Gaston was no philosopher, but he could place a thing when he
saw it: which is a kind of genius.

Presently Sir William said quietly:

"Mrs. Gasgoyne, you knew Robert well; his son ought to know you."

Gaston turned to Mrs. Gasgoyne, and said in his father's manner as much
as possible, for now his mind ran back to how his father talked and
acted, forming a standard for him:

"My father once told me a tale of the Keithley Hunt--something 'away up,'
as they say in the West--and a Mrs. Warren Gasgoyne was in it."

He made an instant friend of Mrs. Gasgoyne--made her so purposely.
This was one of the few things from his father's talks upon his past
life. He remembered the story because it was interesting, the name
because it had a sound.

She flushed with pleasure. That story of the Hunt was one of her
sweetest recollections. For her bravery then she had been voted by the
field "a good fellow," and an admiral present declared that she had a
head "as long as the maintop bow-line." She loved admiration, though she
had no foolish sentiment; she called men silly creatures, and yet would
go on her knees across country to do a deserving man-friend a service.
She was fifty and over, yet she had the springing heart of a girl--mostly
hid behind a brusque manner and a blunt, kindly tongue.

"Your father could always tell a good story," she said.

"He told me one of you: what about telling me one of him?"

Adaptable, he had at once fallen in with her direct speech; the more so
because it was his natural way; any other ways were "games," as he
himself said.

She flashed a glance at her sister, and smiled half-ironically.

"I could tell you plenty," she said softly. "He was a startling fellow,
and went far sometimes; but you look as if you could go farther."

Gaston helped himself to an entree, wondering whether a knife was used
with sweetbreads.