Самые смешные рассказы / The Best Funny Stories (+ аудиоприложение) - стр. 4

Then he kissed them, told them to be good and to go to sleep; and found himself painfully hungry. He went downstairs, where in the kitchen he made a meal of cold pie and cucumber.

He went to bed feeling more peaceful, but still could not sleep, so he lay thinking about his business affairs till five, when he fell asleep.

At one o’clock to the minute he awoke. His wife told him she had made everything to wake him earlier, but in vain. The man was irritated. If he had not been a very good man, I believe he would have sworn. The same repeated as on the Thursday, and again he reached the City at three.

This situation went on for a month. The man fought against himself, but was unable to change himself. Every afternoon at one he awoke. Every night at one he went down into the kitchen for food. Every morning at five he fell asleep.”

“He could not understand it, nobody could understand it. His business suffered, and his health grew worse. He seemed to be living upside down. His days didn’t have a beginning or end, only the middle. There was no time for exercise or rest. When he began to feel cheerful and sociable everybody was asleep.

‘What time is it now in New York?’ she asked.

‘New York,’ said her father, ‘let me see. It’s just ten now, and there’s a little over four and a half hours’ difference. Oh, about half-past five in the afternoon.’

‘Then in Jefferson,’ said the mother, ‘it is earlier, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ replied the girl, ‘Jefferson is nearly two degrees further west.’

‘Two degrees,’ said the father, ‘and there’s forty minutes to a degree. That would make it now, at the present moment in Jefferson—’

He jumped up with a cry:

‘I’ve got it!’ he shouted, ‘I see it.’

‘See what?’ asked his wife, alarmed.

‘It’s four o’clock in Jefferson, and just time for my ride. That’s what I want!’

There was no doubt about it. For five-and-twenty years he lived by clockwork. But it was by Jefferson clockwork, not London clockwork. He had changed his longitude, but not himself.

He examined the problem and decided that the only solution was for him to return to the order of his old life. He was too formed by habit to adapt himself to circumstances. Circumstances must adapt to him.

He changed his office hours from three till ten. At ten he mounted his horse and went for a canter in the Row, and on very dark nights he carried a lantern. News of it got abroad, and crowds would gather to see him ride past.

He dined at one o’clock in the morning, and after that went to his club. He tried to discover a quiet, respectable club where the members were willing to play whist till four in the morning, but failed and joined a small Soho club, where they taught him poker. The place was occasionally raided by the police, but thanks to his respectable appearance, he managed to escape.