"Wells, H G - The Research Magnificent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

He had been a boy reserved rather than florid in his acts and
manners, a boy with a pale face, incorrigible hair and brown eyes
that went dark and deep with excitement. Several times White had
seen him excited, and when he was excited Benham was capable of
tensely daring things. On one occasion he had insisted upon walking
across a field in which was an aggressive bull. It had been put
there to prevent the boys taking a short cut to the swimming place.
It had bellowed tremendously and finally charged him. He had dodged
it and got away; at the time it had seemed an immense feat to White
and the others who were safely up the field. He had walked to the
fence, risking a second charge by his deliberation. Then he had sat
on the fence and declared his intention of always crossing the field
so long as the bull remained there. He had said this with white
intensity, he had stopped abruptly in mid-sentence, and then
suddenly he had dropped to the ground, clutched the fence, struggled
with heaving shoulders, and been sick.

The combination of apparently stout heart and manifestly weak
stomach had exercised the Minchinghampton intelligence profoundly.

On one or two other occasions Benham had shown courage of the same
rather screwed-up sort. He showed it not only in physical but in
mental things. A boy named Prothero set a fashion of religious
discussion in the school, and Benham, after some self-examination,
professed an atheistical republicanism rather in the manner of
Shelley. This brought him into open conflict with Roddles, the
History Master. Roddles had discovered these theological
controversies in some mysterious way, and he took upon himself to
talk at Benham and Prothero. He treated them to the common
misapplication of that fool who "hath said in his heart there is no
God." He did not perceive there was any difference between the fool
who says a thing in his heart and one who says it in the dormitory.
He revived that delectable anecdote of the Eton boy who professed
disbelief and was at once "soundly flogged" by his head master.
"Years afterwards that boy came back to thank ----"

"Gurr," said Prothero softly. "STEW--ard!"

"Your turn next, Benham," whispered an orthodox controversialist.

"Good Lord! I'd like to see him," said Benham with a forced
loudness that could scarcely be ignored.

The subsequent controversy led to an interview with the head. From
it Benham emerged more whitely strung up than ever. "He said he
would certainly swish me if I deserved it, and I said I would
certainly kill him if he did."

"And then?"