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

"Of course," I interrupted him. I was impatient to get back to my
conversation with Yehudi Smith. "That's all right, Clyde. But what do you
want now?"
"I want to know if you've decided whether or not you want to sell the
Clarion."
For a second I was unreasonably angry. I said, "God damn it, Clyde, you
interrupt the only really interesting conversation I've had in years to ask
me that, when we've been talking about it for months, off and on? I don't
know. I do and I don't want to sell it."
"Sorry for heckling you, Doc, but I just got a special delivery letter
from my brother in Ohio. He's got an offer out West. Says he'd rather come
to Carmel City on the proposition I'd made him contingent on your deciding
to sell me the Clarion, of course. But he's got to accept the other offer
right away within a day or so, that is if he's going to accept it at all.
"So, you see that makes it different, Doc. I've got to know right away.
Not tonight, necessarily; it isn't in that much of a rush. But I've got to
know by tomorrow sometime, so I thought I'd call you right away so you could
start coming to a decision."
I nodded and then realized that he couldn't see me nod so I said,
"Sure, Clyde, I get it. I'm sorry for popping off. All right, I'll make up
my mind by tomorrow morning. I'll let you know one way or the other by then.
Okay?"
"Fine," he said. "That'll be plenty of time. Oh, by the way, there's an
item of news for you if it's not too late to put it in. Or have you already
got it?"
"Got what?"
"About the escaped maniac. I don't know the details, but a friend of
mine just drove over from Neilsville and he says they're stopping cars and
watching the roads both sides of the county asylum. Guess you can get the
details if you call the asylum."
"Thanks, Clyde," I said.
I put the phone back down in its cradle and looked at Yehudi Smith. I
wondered why, with all the fantastic things he'd said, I hadn't already
guessed.


CHAPTER FOUR


"But wait a bit," the Oyster cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"

I felt a hell of a letdown. Oh, not that I'd really quite believed in
the Vorpal Blades or that we were going to a haunted house to conjure up a
Jabberwock or whatever we'd have done there.
But it had been exciting even to think about it, just as one can get
excited over a chess game even though he knows that the kings and queens on
the board aren't real entities and that when a bishop slays a knight no real