Array Коллектив авторов - 33 лучших юмористических рассказа на английском / 33 Best Humorous Short Stories

‘I found George B. Tapley in a little tent with a window flap open. He was a fattish man with an immediate eye, in a black skull-cap, with a four-ounce diamond screwed into the bosom of his red sweater.

‘“Are you George B. Tapley?” I asks.

‘“I swear it,” says he.

‘“Well, I’ve got it,” says I.

‘“Designate,” says he. “Are you the guinea pigs for the Asiatic python or the alfalfa for the sacred buffalo?”

‘“Neither, “ says I. “I’ve got Beppo, the educated hog, in a sack in that wagon. I found him rooting up the flowers in my front yard this morning. I’ll take the five thousand dollars in large bills, if it’s handy.”

‘George B. hustles out of his tent, and asks me to follow. We went into one of the side-shows. In there was a jet black pig with a pink ribbon around his neck lying on some hay and eating carrots that a man was feeding to him.

‘“Hey, Mac,” calls G. B. “Nothing wrong with the world-wide this morning, is there?”

‘“Him? No,” says the man. “He’s got an appetite like a chorus girl at 1 A.M.”

‘“How’d you get this pipe?” says Tapley to me. “Eating too many pork chops last night?”

‘I pulls out the paper and shows him the ad.

‘“Fake,” says he. “Don’t know anything about it. You’ve beheld with your own eyes the marvelous, world-wide porcine wonder of the four-footed kingdom eating with preternatural sagacity his matutinal meal, unstrayed and unstole. Good morning.”

‘I was beginning to see. I got in the wagon and told Uncle Ned to drive to the most adjacent orifice of the nearest alley. There I took out my pig, got the range carefully for the other opening, set his sights, and gave him such a kick that he went out the other end of the alley twenty feet ahead of his squeal.

‘Then I paid Uncle Ned his fifty cents, and walked down to the newspaper office. I wanted to hear it in cold syllables. I got the advertising man to his window.

‘“To decide a bet,” says I, “wasn’t the man who had this ad. put in last night short and fat, with long black whiskers and a club-foot?”

‘“He was not,” says the man. “He would measure about six feet by four and a half inches, with corn-silk hair, and dressed like the pansies of the conservatory.”

‘At dinner time I went back to Mrs. Peevy’s.

‘“Shall I keep some soup hot for Mr. Tatum till he comes back?” she asks.

‘“If you do, ma’am,” says I, “you’ll more than exhaust for firewood all the coal in the bosom of the earth and all the forests on the outside of it.”

‘So there, you see,’ said Jefferson Peters, in conclusion, ‘how hard it is ever to find a fair-minded and honest business-partner.’

‘But,’ I began, with the freedom of long acquaintance, ‘the rule should work both ways. If you had offered to divide the reward you would not have lost —’

Jeff’s look of dignified reproach stopped me.

‘That don’t involve the same principles at all,’ said he. ‘Mine was a legitimate and moral attempt at speculation. Buy low and sell high – don’t Wall Street endorse it? Bulls and bears and pigs – what’s the difference? Why not bristles as well as horns and fur?’

There was a painless stage of incubation that lasted twenty-five years, and then it broke out on me, and people said I was It. But they called it humor instead of measles.

The employees in the store bought a silver inkstand for the senior partner on his fiftieth birthday. We crowded into his private office to present it. I had been selected for spokesman, and I made a little speech that I had been preparing for a week.

It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny twists that brought down the house – which was a very solid one in the wholesale hardware line. Old Marlowe himself actually grinned, and the employees took their cue and roared.

My reputation as a humorist dates from half-past nine o’clock on that morning. For weeks afterward my fellow clerks fanned the flame of my self-esteem. One by one they came to me, saying what an awfully clever speech that was, old man, and carefully explained to me the point of each one of my jokes.

Gradually I found that I was expected to keep it up. Others might speak sanely on business matters and the day’s topics, but from me something gamesome and airy was required.

I was expected to crack jokes about the crockery and lighten up the granite ware with persiflage. I was second bookkeeper, and if I failed to show up a balance sheet without something comic about the footings or could find no cause for laughter in an invoice of plows, the other clerks were disappointed. By degrees my fame spread, and I became a local ‘character.’ Our town was small enough to make this possible. The daily newspaper quoted me. At social gatherings I was indispensable.

I believe I did possess considerable wit and a facility for quick and spontaneous repartee. This gift I cultivated and improved by practice. And the nature of it was kindly and genial, not running to sarcasm or offending others. People began to smile when they saw me coming, and by the time we had met I generally had the word ready to broaden the smile into a laugh.

I had married early. We had a charming boy of three and a girl of five. Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage, and were happy. My salary as bookkeeper in the hardware concern kept at a distance those ills attendant upon superfluous wealth.

At sundry times I had written out a few jokes and conceits that I considered peculiarly happy, and had sent them to certain periodicals that print such things. All of them had been instantly accepted. Several of the editors had written to request further contributions.

One day I received a letter from the editor of a famous weekly publication. He suggested that I submit to him a humorous composition to fill a column of space; hinting that he would make it a regular feature of each issue if the work proved satisfactory. I did so, and at the end of two weeks he offered to make a contract with me for a year at a figure that was considerably higher than the amount paid me by the hardware firm.

I was filled with delight. My wife already crowned me in her mind with the imperishable evergreens of literary success. We had lobster croquettes and a bottle of blackberry wine for supper that night. Here was the chance to liberate myself from drudgery. I talked over the matter very seriously with Louisa. We agreed that I must resign my place at the store and devote myself to humor.

I resigned. My fellow clerks gave me a farewell banquet. The speech I made there coruscated. It was printed in full by the Gazette. The next morning I awoke and looked at the clock.

‘Late, by George!’ I exclaimed, and grabbed for my clothes. Louisa reminded me that I was no longer a slave to hardware and contractors’ supplies. I was now a professional humorist.

After breakfast she proudly led me to the little room off the kitchen. Dear girl! There was my table and chair, writing pad, ink, and pipe tray. And all the author’s trappings – the celery stand full of fresh roses and honeysuckle, last year’s calendar on the wall, the dictionary, and a little bag of chocolates to nibble between inspirations. Dear girl!

I sat me to work. The wall paper is patterned with arabesques or odalisks or – perhaps – it is trapezoids. Upon one of the figures I fixed my eyes. I bethought me of humor. A voice startled me – Louisa’s voice.

‘If you aren’t too busy, dear,’ it said, ‘come to dinner.’

I looked at my watch. Yes, five hours had been gathered in by the grim scytheman. I went to dinner.

‘You mustn’t work too hard at first,’ said Louisa. ‘Goethe – or was it Napoleon? – said five hours a day is enough for mental labor. Couldn’t you take me and the children to the woods this afternoon?’