"Г.К.Честертон. The Club of Queer Trades " - читать интересную книгу автора

was Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh, who looked at him with a still and
sullen but unmistakable desire to throw him out of the window.

He sat there, coiled rather than seated on the easy chair;
everything from the curves of his smooth limbs to the coils of his
silvered hair suggesting the circles of a serpent more than the
straight limbs of a man--the unmistakable, splendid serpentine
gentleman we had seen walking in North London, his eyes shining
with repeated victory.

"What I can't understand, Mr Wimpole," said Muriel Beaumont
eagerly, "is how you contrive to treat all this so easily. You say
things quite philosophical and yet so wildly funny. If I thought
of such things, I'm sure I should laugh outright when the thought
first came."

"I agree with Miss Beaumont," said Sir Walter, suddenly exploding
with indignation. "If I had thought of anything so futile, I should
find it difficult to keep my countenance."

"Difficult to keep your countenance," cried Mr Wimpole, with an air
of alarm; "oh, do keep your countenance! Keep it in the British
Museum."

Every one laughed uproariously, as they always do at an already
admitted readiness, and Sir Walter, turning suddenly purple,
shouted out:

"Do you know who you are talking to, with your confounded
tomfooleries?"

"I never talk tomfooleries," said the other, "without first knowing
my audience."

Grant walked across the room and tapped the red-moustached
secretary on the shoulder. That gentleman was leaning against the
wall regarding the whole scene with a great deal of gloom; but, I
fancied, with very particular gloom when his eyes fell on the young
lady of the house rapturously listening to Wimpole.

"May I have a word with you outside, Drummond?" asked Grant. "It is
about business. Lady Beaumont will excuse us."

I followed my friend, at his own request, greatly wondering, to
this strange external interview. We passed abruptly into a kind of
side room out of the hall.

"Drummond," said Basil sharply, "there are a great many good
people, and a great many sane people here this afternoon.
Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are