"Wells, H G - The Door In The Wall, And Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

got entangled among some rather low-class streets on the other side
of Campden Hill, and I began to think that for once the game would
be against me and that I should get to school late. I tried rather
desperately a street that seemed a cul de sac, and found a
passage at the end. I hurried through that with renewed hope. 'I
shall do it yet,' I said, and passed a row of frowsy little shops
that were inexplicably familiar to me, and behold! there was my
long white wall and the green door that led to the enchanted
garden!

"The thing whacked upon me suddenly. Then, after all, that garden,
that wonderful garden, wasn't a dream!" . . . .

He paused.

"I suppose my second experience with the green door marks the
world of difference there is between the busy life of a schoolboy
and the infinite leisure of a child. Anyhow, this second time I
didn't for a moment think of going in straight away. You see . .
. For one thing my mind was full of the idea of getting to school
in time--set on not breaking my record for punctuality. I must
surely have felt SOME little desire at least to try the
door--yes, I must have felt that . . . . . But I seem to remember
the attraction of the door mainly as another obstacle to my
overmastering determination to get to school. I was immediately
interested by this discovery I had made, of course--I went on with
my mind full of it--but I went on. It didn't check me. I ran past
tugging out my watch, found I had ten minutes still to spare, and
then I was going downhill into familiar surroundings. I got to
school, breathless, it is true, and wet with perspiration, but in
time. I can remember hanging up my coat and hat . . . Went right
by it and left it behind me. Odd, eh?"

He looked at me thoughtfully. "Of course, I didn't know then
that it wouldn't always be there. School boys have limited
imaginations. I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to
have it there, to know my way back to it, but there was the school
tugging at me. I expect I was a good deal distraught and
inattentive that morning, recalling what I could of the beautiful
strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough I had no
doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me . . . Yes, I
must have thought of the garden that morning just as a jolly sort
of place to which one might resort in the interludes of a strenuous
scholastic career.

"I didn't go that day at all. The next day was a half
holiday, and that may have weighed with me. Perhaps, too, my state
of inattention brought down impositions upon me and docked the
margin of time necessary for the detour. I don't know. What I do
know is that in the meantime the enchanted garden was so much upon