"A. E. Van Vogt - The Rat & the Snake & Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Vogt A E)

Myra giggled, "Is that what we were talking about? I wondered."
The laughter that followed did not deter the newcomer.
"It so happens that I have had an experience which illustrates the point. It began one day when I
was glancing through the newspaper, and I ran across a circus advertisement . . . "
At the top of the ad (he went on) was a large question mark followed by some equally large
exclamation marks. Then:
THE CATAAAA
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WHAT IS IT?
IT'S THE CAT
COME AND SEE THE CAT
THE CAT WILL STARTLE YOU
THE CAT WILL AMAZE YOU
SEE THE CAT AT THE CIRCUS
FREAK SHOW
In smaller letters at the bottom of the ad was the information that the cat was being "shown under
the personal direction of Silkey Travis."
Until that point I had been reading with a vague interest and curiosity. The name made me jump.
"Good lord!" I thought. "It's him. It's Silkey Travis on that card."
I hurried to my desk, and took out a card that had come in the mail two days before. At the time
it had made no sense to me at all. The words written on the back in a fine script seemed pure
gibberish, and the photograph on the front, though familiar, unlocked no real memory. It was of a
man with a haunted look on his face, sitting in a small cage. I now recognized it as being a
likeness of Silkey Travis, not as I had known him fifteen or so years before, but plumper, older,
as he would be now.
I returned to my chair, and sat musing about the past.
Even in those days, his name had fitted Silkey Travis. At high school he organized the bathing
beauty contest, and gave the first prize to his cousin and the second prize to the girl who was the
teacher's pet of most of the teachers. The students' science exhibition, a collection of local
lizards, snakes, insects and a few Indian artifacts was an annual affair, which brought a turnout
of admiring parents. Invariably, it was Silkey who organized it. Plays, holiday shows and other
paraphernalia of school pastimes felt the weight of his guiding hand and circus spirit.
After graduating from high school, I went on to State college to major in biology, and I lost sight
of Silkey for seven years. Then I saw an item in one of the papers to the effect that local boy
Silkey Travis was doing well in the big town, having just purchased a "piece" of a vaudeville
show, and that he also owned a "piece" in a beach concession in New Jersey.
Again, there was silence. And now, here he was, no doubt "piece" owner of the circus freak
show.
THE CATAAAA
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Having solved the mystery of the postcard, so it seemed to me, I felt amused and tolerant. I
wondered if Silkey had sent the card to all his former school companions. I decided not to puzzle
any more about the meaning of the words written on the back. The scheme behind them was all
too obvious.
Sitting there, I had absolutely no intention of going to the circus. I went to bed at my usual hour,
and woke up with a start some hours later to realize that I was not alone. The sensations that
came to me as I lay there have been described by Johnson in his book on morbid fears.
I lived in a quiet neighborhood, and the silence was intense. Presently, I could hear the labored