"Tom Reamy - San Diego Lightfoot Sue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reamy Tom)

"And perhaps ein Tropfchen Schnapps to begin with?" he suggested.

"A brandy?тАФyes!" I replied. "And not just a drop, either. Make it a double. It is not every day I lunch
with that distinguished scholar, my son."

"Oh, Papa," he protested, dropping his eyes and almost blushing. Then firmly to the bent-backed,
white-haired wine waiter, "Schnapps also. Doppel." The old waiter nodded his approval and hurried
off. We gazed fondly at each other for a few blissful seconds. Then I said, "Now tell me more fully about
your achievements as a social historian on an ex* change professorship in the New World. I know we
have spoken about this several times, but only rather briefly and generally when various of your friends
were present, or at least your lovely wife. Now I would like a more leisurely man-to-man account of
your great work. Incidentally, do you find the scholarly apparatusтАФbooks, und so weiter ("et
cetera")тАФof the
CATCH THAT ZEPPEUNl 17

Municipal Universities of New York City adequate to your needs after having enjoyed those of
Baden-Baden University and the institutions of high learning in the German Federation?" . .

"In some respects they are lacking," he admitted. "However, for my purposes they have proved
completely adequate." Then once more he dropped his eyes and almost blushed. "But, Papa, you praise
my small efforts far too highly." He lowered his voice. "They do not compare with the victory for
international industrial relations you yourself have won in a fortnight."

"All in a day's work for the DLG," I said self-deprecatingly, though once again lightly touching my left
chest to establish contact with those most important documents safely stowed in my inside left breast
pocket, "But now, no more polite fencingl" I went on briskly. "TeH me all about those 'small efforts,' as
you modestly refer to them."
His eyes met mine. "Well, Papa," he began in suddenly matter-of-fact fashion, "all my work these last two
years has been increasingly dominated by a firm awareness of the fragility of the underpinnings of the
good world-society we enjoy today. If certain historically-minute key events, or cusps, in only the past
one hundred years had been decided differentlyтАФif another course had been chosen than the one that
wasтАФthen the whole world might now be plunged in wars and worse horrors then we ever dream of. It
is a chilling insight, but it bulks continually larger in my entire work, my every paper."

I felt the thrilling touch of inspiration. At that moment the wine waiter arrived with our double brandies in
small goblets of cut glass. I wove the interruption into the fabric of my inspiration. "Let us drink then to
what you name your chilling insight," I said. "Prosit!" -

The bite and spreading warmth of the excellent schnapps quickened my inspiration further. "I believe
l8 FBITZ LEIBER

I understand exactly what you're getting at . . ."I told my son. I set down my half-emptied goblet and
pointed at something over my son's shoulder.

He turned his head around, and after one glance back at my pointing finger, which intentionally waggled a
tiny bit from side to side, he realized that I was not indicating the entry of the Krahenest, but the four
sizable bronze statuettes flanking it.

"For instance," I said, "if Thomas Edison and Marie Sklodowska had not married, and especially if they
had not had their super-genius son, then Edison's knowledge of electricity and hers of radium and other