Array Коллектив авторов - 75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘You have listened to the man of theory,’ he said proudly. ‘You shall now behold the practical engineer. We will go to the west of the Mississippi and find some suitably level locality. We will erect thereon a model Tachypomp. We will summon thereunto the professor, his daughter, and why not his fair sister Jocasta, as well? We will take them a journey which shall much astonish the venerable Surd. He shall place Abscissa’s digits in yours and bless you both with an algebraic formula. Jocasta shall contemplate with wonder the genius of Rivarol. But we have much to do. We must ship to St. Joseph the vast amount of material to be employed in the construction of the Tachypomp. We must engage a small army of workmen to effect that construction, for we are to annihilate time and space. Perhaps you had better see your bankers.’

I rushed impetuously to the door. There should be no delay. ‘Stop! stop! Um Gottes Willen [437], stop!’ shrieked Rivarol. ‘I launched my butcher this morning and I haven’t bolted the—’

But it was too late. I was upon the trap. It swung open with a crash, and I was plunged down, down, down! I felt as if I were falling through illimitable space. I remember wondering, as I rushed through the darkness, whether I should reach Kerguellen’s Land or stop at the center. It seemed an eternity. Then my course was suddenly and painfully arrested.

I opened my eyes. Around me were the walls of Professor Surd’s study. Under me was a hard, unyielding plane which I knew too well was Professor Surd’s study floor. Behind me was the black, slippery, haircloth chair which had belched me forth, much as the whale served Jonah. In front of me stood Professor Surd himself, looking down with a not unpleasant smile.

‘Good evening, Mr. Furnace. Let me help you up. You look tired, sir. No wonder you fell asleep when I kept you so long waiting. Shall I get you a glass of wine? No? By the way, since receiving your letter I find that you are a son of my old friend, Judge Furnace. I have made inquiries, and see no reason why you should not make Abscissa a good husband.’

Still I can see no reason why the Tachypomp should not have succeeded. Can you?

Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the Minerva Magazine , and deflected him from his course. He had lunched in his favorite corner of a Broadway hotel, and was returning to his office when his feet became entangled in the lure of the vernal coquette. Which is by way of saying that he turned eastward in Twenty-sixth Street, safely forded the spring freshet of vehicles in Fifth Avenue, and meandered along the walks of budding Madison Square [438].

The lenient air and the settings of the little park almost formed a pastoral; the color motif was green – the presiding shade at the creation of man and vegetation.

The callow grass between the walks was the color of verdigris, a poisonous green, reminiscent of the horde of derelict humans that had breathed upon the soil during the summer and autumn. The bursting tree buds looked strangely familiar to those who had botanized among the garnishings of the fish course of a forty-cent dinner. The sky above was of that pale aquamarine [439]tint that ballroom poets rhyme with ‘true’ and ‘Sue’ and ‘coo.’ The one natural and frank color visible was the ostensible green of the newly painted benches – a shade between the color of a pickled cucumber and that of a last year’s fast-black cravenette raincoat. But, to the city-bred eye of Editor Westbrook, the landscape appeared a masterpiece.

And now, whether you are of those who rush in, or of the gentle concourse that fears to tread, you must follow in a brief invasion of the editor’s mind.

Editor Westbrook’s spirit was contented and serene. The April number of the Minerva had sold its entire edition before the tenth day of the month – a newsdealer in Keokuk had written that he could have sold fifty copies more if he had ’em. The owners of the magazine had raised his (the editor’s) salary; he had just installed in his home a jewel of a recently imported cook who was afraid of policemen; and the morning papers had published in full a speech he had made at a publishers’ banquet. Also there were echoing in his mind the jubilant notes of a splendid song that his charming young wife had sung to him before he left his up-town apartment that morning. She was taking enthusiastic interest in her music of late, practising early and diligently. When he had complimented her on the improvement in her voice she had fairly hugged him for joy at his praise. He felt, too, the benign, tonic medicament of the trained nurse, Spring, tripping softly adown the wards of the convalescent city.

While Editor Westbrook was sauntering between the rows of park benches (already filling with vagrants and the guardians of lawless childhood) he felt his sleeve grasped and held. Suspecting that he was about to be panhandled, he turned a cold and unprofitable face, and saw that his captor was – Dawe – Shackleford Dawe, dingy, almost ragged, the genteel scarcely visible in him through the deeper lines of the shabby.

While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlight biography of Dawe is offered.

He was a fiction writer, and one of Westbrook’s old acquaintances. At one time they might have called each other old friends. Dawe had some money in those days, and lived in a decent apartment house near Westbrook’s. The two families often went to theatres and dinners together. Mrs. Dawe and Mrs. Westbrook became ‘dearest’ friends. Then one day a little tentacle of the octopus, just to amuse itself, ingurgitated Dawe’s capital, and he moved to the Gramercy Park neighborhood where one, for a few groats per week, may sit upon one’s trunk under eight-branched chandeliers and opposite Carrara [440]marble mantels and watch the mice play upon the floor. Dawe thought to live by writing fiction. Now and then he sold a story. He submitted many to Westbrook. The Minerva printed one or two of them; the rest were returned. Westbrook sent a careful and conscientious personal letter with each rejected manuscript, pointing out in detail his reasons for considering it unavailable. Editor Westbrook had his own clear conception of what constituted good fiction. So had Dawe. Mrs. Dawe was mainly concerned about the constituents of the scanty dishes of food that she managed to scrape together. One day Dawe had been spouting to her about the excellencies of certain French writers. At dinner they sat down to a dish that a hungry schoolboy could have encompassed at a gulp. Dawe commented.

‘It’s Maupassant [441]hash,’ said Mrs. Dawe. ‘It may not be art, but I do wish you would do a five-course Marion Crawford [442]serial with an Ella Wheeler Wilcox [443]sonnet for dessert. I’m hungry.’

As far as this from success was Shackleford Dawe when he plucked Editor Westbrook’s sleeve in Madison Square. That was the first time the editor had seen Dawe in several months.

‘Why, Shack, is this you?’ said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for the form of his phrase seemed to touch upon the other’s changed appearance.

‘Sit down for a minute,’ said Dawe, tugging at his sleeve. ‘This is my office. I can’t come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, sit down – you won’t be disgraced. Those half-plucked birds on the other benches will take you for a swell porch-climber. They won’t know you are only an editor.’

‘Smoke, Shack?’ said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon the virulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield.

Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sun-perch, or a girl pecks at a chocolate cream.

‘I have just—’ began the editor.