Fancies and Goodnights - Collier John - Страница 47
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Amid hoots and exclamations in technical language the great ship left her moorings. George, on the pretext that he had to maintain constant communication with his chief, took over the wireless operator's cabin. You may be sure Satan was in a fury when he heard what had happened; but the only effect of that was that his gouty members became a thousand times worse inflamed, and grew still more so when he found it impossible to establish communication with the ship.
The best he could do was to conjure up, in the trackless wastes of space, such dumb images as might tempt Rosie to glance behind her. A Paris hat would bob up like a buoy on the starboard bow, and a moment later (so great was the speed of the ship) be tossing far astern. On other occasions, the images of the most famous film actors would be descried sitting on the silver planets of far constellations, combing their hair. She was exposed to a hundred temptations of this sort, and, what was crueller, she was subjected, by pursuant imps, to ceaseless tweakings of the hair, tuggings of the garments, sensations as of a spider down her back, and to all sorts of odious familiarities, such as would be very offensive to describe! The devoted girl, holding fast to the forward rail of the boat-deck, never so much as nickered an eye.
The result of this devotion, coupled with George's vigilance at the earphones and Charon's drunkenness below, was that they soon heaved to in the latitudes of the earth. George and Rosie were set to slide at dizzy speed down an invisible rope, and they found themselves safely in bed beside the old centenarian, Mrs. Soames.
She was in a tearing rage when she found this young couple beside her. «Get out of here at once!» she cried.
«All right,» they said, «we will.»
The very next day I met them in Oxford Street, looking in the windows of the furniture shops, and George acquainted me with the whole story.
«And you say,» said I, «that the universe is really a vast pint of beer?»
«Yes,» said he. «It is all true. To prove it, I will show you the very place where Rosie was pinched by the envious young woman.»
«The very place?» I cried.
«Yes,» said he. «It was in that shop over there, at the counter to the right as you go in, just at the end of the stockings, and before the beginning of the lingerie.»
AH THE UNIVERSITY
Just outside London there lived an old father who dearly loved his only son. Accordingly, when the boy was a youngster of some eighteen years, the old man sent for him and, with a benevolent glimmer of his horn-rimmed spectacles, said, «Well, Jack, you are now done with school. No doubt you are looking forward to going to the university.»
«Yes, Dad, I am,» said the son.
«You show good judgment,» said the father. «The best years of one's whole life are unquestionably those which are spent at the university. Apart from the vast honeycomb of learning, the mellow voices of the professors, the venerable gray buildings, and the atmosphere of culture and refinement, there is the delight of being in possession of a comfortable allowance.»
«Yes, Dad,» said the son.
«Rooms of one's own,» continued the father, «little dinners to one's friends, endless credit with the tradespeople, pipes, cigars, claret, Burgundy, clothes.»
«Yes, Dad,» said the son.
«There are exclusive little clubs,» said the old man, «all sorts of sports, May Weeks, theatricals, balls, parties, rags, binges, scaling of walk, dodging of proctors, fun of every conceivable description.»
«Yes! Yes, Dad!» cried the son.
«Certainly nothing in the world is more delightful than being at the university,» said the father. «The springtime of life! Pleasure after pleasure! The world seems a whole dozen of oysters, each with a pearl in it. Ah, the university! However, I'm not going to send you there.»
«Then why the hell do you go on so about it?» said poor Jack.
«I did so in order that you might not think I was carelessly underestimating the pleasures I must call upon you to renounce,» said his father. «You see, Jack, my health is not of the best; nothing but champagne agrees with me, and if I smoke a second-rate cigar, I get a vile taste in my month. My expenses have mounted abominably and I shall have very little to leave to you, yet my dearest wish is to see you in a comfortable way of life.»
«If that is your wish, you might gratify it by sending me to the university,» said Jack.
«We must think of the future,» said his father. «You will have your living to earn, and in a world where culture is the least marketable of assets. Unless you are to be a schoolmaster or a curate, you will gain no great advantage from the university.»
«Then what am I to be?» the young man asked.
«I read only a little while ago,» said his father, «the following words, which flashed like sudden lightning upon the gloom in which I was considering your future: 'Most players are weak.' These words came from a little brochure upon the delightful and universally popular game of poker. It is a game which is played for counters, commonly called chips, and each of these chips represents an agreeable sum of money.»
«Do you mean that I am to be a card-sharper?» cried the son.
«Nothing of the sort,» replied the old man promptly. «I am asking you to be strong, Jack. I am asking you to show initiative, individuality. Why learn what everyone else is learning? You, my dear boy, shall be the first to study poker as systematically as others study languages, science, mathematics, and so forth — the first to tackle it as a student I have set aside a cosy little room with chair, table, and some completely new packs of cards. A bookshelf contains several standard works on the game, and a portrait of Machiavelli hangs above the mantelpiece.»
The young man's protests were vain, so he set himself reluctantly to study. He worked hard, mastered the books, wore the spots off a hundred packs of cards, and at the end of the second year he set out into the world with his father's blessing and enough cash to sit in on a few games of penny ante.
After Jack left, the old man consoled himself with his glass of champagne and his first-rate cigar and those other little pleasures which are the solace of the old and the lonely. He was getting on very well with these when one day the telephone rang. It was an overseas call from Jack, whose existence the old man had all but forgotten.
«Hullo, Dad!» cried the son in tones of great excitement «I'm in Paris, sitting in on a game of poker with some Americans.»
«Good luck to you!» said the old man, preparing to hang up the receiver.
«Listen, Dad!» cried the son. «It's like this. Well — just for once I'm playing without any limit.»
«Lord have mercy on you!» said the old man.
«There's two of them still in,» said the son. «They've raised me fifty thousand dollars and I've already put up every cent I've got»
«I would rather,» groaned the old man, «see a son of mine at the university than in such a situation.»
«But I've got four kings!» cried the young man.
«You can be sure the others have aces or straight flushes,» said the old man. «Back down, my poor boy. Go out and play for cigarette ends with the habitues of your doss house.»
«But listen, Dad!» cried the son. «This is a stud round, and nothing wild. I've seen an ace chucked in. I've seen all the tens and fives chucked in. There isn't a straight flush possible.»
«Is that so?» cried the old man. «Never let it be said I didn't stand behind my boy. Hold everything. I'm coining to your assistance.»
The son went back to the card table and begged his opponents to postpone matters until his father could arrive, and they, smiling at their cards, were only too willing to oblige him.
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