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

urgent. It wouldn't have done to be tame."

"Oh," I said, "I acquit you of tameness."

"Thank you, sir," said the man respectfully, "always very grateful
for any recommendation, sir."

The other man idly pushed back his artificial bald head, revealing
close red hair, and spoke dreamily, perhaps under the influence of
Basil's admirable Burgundy.

"It's wonderful how common it's getting, gentlemen. Our office is
busy from morning till night. I've no doubt you've often knocked
up against us before. You just take notice. When an old bachelor
goes on boring you with hunting stories, when you're burning to be
introduced to somebody, he's from our bureau. When a lady calls on
parish work and stops hours, just when you wanted to go to the
Robinsons', she's from our bureau. The Robinson hand, sir, may be
darkly seen."

"There is one thing I don't understand," I said. "Why you are both
vicars."

A shade crossed the brow of the temporary incumbent of Chuntsey, in
Essex.

"That may have been a mistake, sir," he said. "But it was not our
fault. It was all the munificence of Captain Fraser. He requested
that the highest price and talent on our tariff should be employed
to detain you gentlemen. Now the highest payment in our office goes
to those who impersonate vicars, as being the most respectable and
more of a strain. We are paid five guineas a visit. We have had the
good fortune to satisfy the firm with our work; and we are now
permanently vicars. Before that we had two years as colonels, the
next in our scale. Colonels are four guineas."



Chapter 4

The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent

Lieutenant Drummond Keith was a man about whom conversation always
burst like a thunderstorm the moment he left the room. This arose
from many separate touches about him. He was a light, loose
person, who wore light, loose clothes, generally white, as if he
were in the tropics; he was lean and graceful, like a panther, and
he had restless black eyes.

He was very impecunious. He had one of the habits of the poor,