"E. E. Doc Smith - Skylark 1 - Skylark of Space " - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

rare metals - his dissertation having the lively title of `Some Observations upon Certain
Properties of Certain Metals, Including Certain TransUranic Elements' Soon afterward he
had his own room in the Rare Metals Laboratory, in Washington, D.C.

He was a striking figure - well over six feet in height, broadshouldered, narrow-waisted, a
man of tremendous physical strength. He did not let himself grow soft in his laboratory
job, but kept in hard, fine condition. He spent most of his spare time playing tennis,

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swimming, and motorcycling.

As a tennis-player he quickly became well known in Washington sporting and social
circles. During the District Tournament he met M. Reynolds Crane - known to only a very
few intimates as `Martin' -the multi-millionaire explorer-archaeologist-sportsman who was
then District singles champion. Seaton had cleared the lower half of the list and played
Crane in the final round. Crane succeeded in retaining his title, but only after five of the
most grueling, most bitterly contested sets ever seen in Washington.

Impressed by Seaton's powerful, slashing game, Crane suggested that they train
together as a doubles team. Seaton accepted instantly, and the combination was highly
effective.

Practicing together almost daily, each came to know the other as a man of his own kind,
and a real friendship grew up between them. When the Crane-Seaton team had won the
District Championship and had gone to the semi-finals of the National before losing, the
two were upon a footing which most brothers could have envied. Their friendship was
such that neither Crane's immense wealth and high social standing nor Seaton's
comparative poverty and lack of standing offered any obstacle whatever. Their
comradeship was the same, whether they were in Seaton's modest room or in Crane's
palatial yacht.

Crane had never known the lack of anything that money could buy. He had inherited his
fortune and had little or nothing to do with its management, preferring to delegate that job
to financial specialists. However, he was in no sense an idle rich man with no purpose in
life. As well as being an explorer and an archaeologist and a sportsman, he was also an
engineer - a good one - and a rocket-instrument man second to none in the world. The
old Crane estate in Chevy Chase was now, of course, Martin's, and he had left it pretty
much as it was. He had, however, altered one room, the library, and it was now pecu-
liarly typical of the man. It was a large room, very long, with many windows. At one end
was a huge fireplace, before which Crane often sat with his long legs outstretched,
studying one or several books from the cases close at hand. The essential furnishings
were of a rigid simplicity, but the treasures he had gathered transformed the room into a
veritable museum.

He played no instrument, but in a corner stood a magnificent piano, bare of any
ornament; and a Stradivarius reposed in a special cabinet. Few people were asked to
play either of those instruments; but to those few Crane listened in silence, and his brief
words of thanks showed his real appreciation of music.
He made few friends, not because he hoarded his friendship, but because, even more
than most rich men, he had been forced to erect around his real self an almost