"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 163 - The Exploding Lake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

to capacity, which was unusual, because metallurgists were not much different from all convention
attenders; most of them spent their time getting tight and raising what hell could be raised. Juan had been
fortunate to squeeze his way into the hall.



DOC SAVAGE was a conservatively dressed man who did not appear particularly large physically at
first, although later, when Juan got close to him, he realized the man was a giant. Savage had rather
regular bronze features; his coloringтАФthe deep bronzeтАФwas rather striking, it was true. Physically, he
struck a contrast to the anemic-looking faces of the audience, most of whom has spent the night in the
nightclubs.

The man spoke in a voice that seemed low, well-modulated, but a voice that carried to every corner of
the lecture hall. His text was a revelation. Juan had thought he knew something about metals. He began to
feel like a school kid.

Later, he met Doc Savage personallyтАФone of those things where you shake the speaker's hand and tell
him what a wow he was.

тАЬOh, yes, Juan Russel, the Patagonian metallurgist,тАЭ Doc Savage said. тАЬYou have done good work down
there pioneering in fluorescence for prospecting, I understand.тАЭ

That was the extent of their acquaintance, but Juan's interest had been aroused in Doc Savage. After that
he read everything he could find about the man, and his uncanny abilities. He found out that Doc
SavageтАФsometimes called the Bronze Man by the newspapersтАФwas an expert in a number of fields,
and that actually his specialty was surgery.

Juan also learned that Savage had a reputation as an adventurer, that he liked excitement, and that he had
a name as a sort of modern Galahad who went around getting people out of trouble which was either of a
fantastic nature, or outside the abilities of the law enforcement agencies.

Doc Savage, it developed, had five assistants, all experts in their fields; their fields were electricity,
chemistry, law, civil engineering and geology. These men were also adventurers at heart. This group, Juan
found out, had been given credit for wiping out some vicious criminal organizations and solving a number
of fantastic mysteries.

Doc Savage's specialty, Juan had gathered, was the unusual. And he had always retained his admiration
for the big bronze man. Juan, being an adventurer himself in a sense, felt that Doc Savage embodied
some of the things he himself would have liked to be. In the back of his mind, probably, there had been a
secret wish to someday be associated with Doc Savage in a matter involving something weird and very,
very important.



THAT evening, Juan reached the town he had called by telephone, and found the wires were still down.
He visited the telephone office, and he was a wild man. He impressed on everyone from the telephone
company manager down that he must, absolutely must, get hold of Doc Savage, and he repeated the
request that, should the break in the wires be found and repaired, Doc Savage should be contacted at
once and urged to wait at the phone for his, Juan's, call.