"Robert Rankin - Nostradamus Ate My Hamster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

temporary barmaid, who had lost her way in the snow. And it was toward this direction that Jim Pooley
danced at the head of an inebriated conga line, composed for the most part of under-age females.
Johnny G had given up the unequal strug-gle against both the spirited opposition and the ranks of
free pints lined up on his amp. He lay slumped across his drum kit, mouthing the words to a song his
mother had taught him back in Poona and blowing half-heartedly into a crisp-muffled kazoo. The holly
and the ivy were doing all that was expected of them and it certainly did have all the makings of a most
memorable night.
Neville stacked another tray-load of drinks and wiped away a bead of perspiration which had
unprofessionally appeared upon his professional brow. He looked up towards the Guinness clock.
Nearly ten, the counter gay with gifts, but where was Norman?
`Pints over here, please,' called Old Pete, pro-ffering a bundle of newly acquired money notes.
The second hand on the Guinness clock com-pleted another circuit and the hour was struck.
Although no-one actually heard it, the signal echoed mystically about the saloon bar, halting the singers
and drinkers and talkers and revellers in mid-swing and silencing them to a man. Or a woman. Or Will
Shepherd.
 `Merry Christmas to you all,' called Neville the part-time barman. And the folk of The Swan, with
their drinks in their hands took to flocking about him at the bar.
Omally excused himself from his near-naked and frost-bitten unofficial bride-to-be and stumbled in
through the rear door, gathering up Jim Pooley, whose women had deserted him and whose keyhole eye
had snow blindness.
`Three cheers for Neville,' quoth Omally, and the cry went up.
Neville cleared his throat, made a brief speech of thanks, blissfully devoid of time-wasting and
sentiment, rubbed his hands together and to much applause applied himself to the nearest parcel. It
contained an elegant set of cufflinks with matching tie clip, wrought from discarded beer bottle tops. It
was a present from Wally Woods, Brentford's foremost purveyor of wet fish.
`Nice one,' roared the crowd. `Very tasteful.'
Wally accepted these ovations modestly. `It was nothing,' he said.
`Correct,' agreed the crowd. `We were being sarcastic.
The second gift was something of an enigma, being an item which appeared to be neither animal nor
vegetable nor mineral. There was much of the mythical beast to it, but even more to suggest that its
antecedents lay with the sprout family. Neville held it at arm's length and ogled it with his good eye. He
rattled it against his ear and cocked his head on one side.
The crowd took to murmuring.
The bearer of this gift stepped hurriedly up to the bar and whispered words into Neville's ear.
Neville's good eye widened. `Does it, be damned?' said he, rapidly removing the thing to below counter
level. `Most unexpected,' adding, `just what I always wanted.'
Pooley's present proved to be of extraordinary interest. Once naked of its newspaper wrappings it
displayed itself as a square black metal box, approximately six inches to a side, with a slot at the top and
bottom.
Neville shook it suspiciously.
`It's a thing patented by my granddaddy,' said Jim, `called Pooley's Imp rover. It converts base
metal into gold.'
`Well now,' said Neville, making what is known as an `old-fashioned face'. `That's useful.'
`And fully practical.' Jim popped a copper coin into the top slot. Grinding sounds, suggestive of
gears meshing, issued from the box and within but a moment or two, something which had every
appearance of a golden sovereign dropped into Neville's outstretched palm.
Neville held it between thumb and forefinger and then took a little bite at it. `Tis genuine,' said he.
`My thanks, Jim. Here, hang about, what is that funky smell?'
The beer-steeped air of The Flying Swan had suddenly become permeated by a ghastly odour,
suggestive of rotting eggs or the-morning-after-the--big-Vindaloo bathroom.