"Фредерик Браун. Night of the Jabberwock (англ) " - читать интересную книгу автора

happened? Anyone else hurt?"
She'd been part way across the front porch, but she turned and came
back nearer the door. She said, "Oh, please don't put it in the paper. It
wasn't anything important; my husband was the only one hurt and it was his
own fault, he says. And Mr. Bonney wouldn't like it being in the paper; he
has enough trouble now getting as many people as he needs for the rush
season before the Fourth, and so many people are afraid to work around
powder and explosives anyway. George will probably be fired if it gets
written up in the paper and he needs the work."
I sighed; it had been an idea while it lasted. I assured her that I
wouldn't print anything about it. And if George Carr had been the only one
hurt and I didn't have any details, it wouldn't have made over a one-inch
item anyway.
I would have loved, though, to get that beautiful phrase, "the Roman
candle department," into print.
I went back inside and closed the door. I made myself comfortable by
taking off my suit coat and loosening my tie, and then I got the whisky
bottle and my glass and put them on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
I didn't take the tie off yet, nor my shoes; it's nicer to do those
things one at a time as you gradually get more and more comfortable.
I picked out a few books and put them within easy reach,. poured myself
a drink, sat down, and opened one of the books.
The doorbell rang.
Al Grainger had come early, I thought. I went to the door and opened
it. There was a man standing there, just lifting his hand to ring again. But
it wasn't Al; it was a man I'd never seen before.


CHAPTER THREE


How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!

He was short, about my own height, perhaps, but seeming even shorter
because of his greater girth. The first thing you noticed about his face was
his nose; it was long, thin, pointed, grotesquely at variance with his pudgy
body. The light coming past me through the doorway reflected glowing points
in his eyes, giving them a catlike gleam. Yet there was nothing sinister
about him. A short pudgy man can never manage to seem sinister, no matter
how the light strikes his eyes.
"You are Doctor Stoeger?" he asked.
"Doc Stoeger," I corrected him. "But not a doctor of medicine. If
you're looking for a medical doctor, one lives four doors west of here."
He smiled, a nice smile. "I am aware that you are not a medico, Doctor.
Ph. D., Burgoyne College nineteen twenty-two, I believe. Author of Lewis
Carroll Through the Looking-Glass and Red Queen and White Queen."
It startled me. Not so much that he knew my college and the year of my