Смешные рассказы / The Funny Stories - стр. 9
“Now he's gone,” – continues Bill – “Gone home. I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm sorry we lose the ransom.”
Bill was puffing, but there was a look of peace and content[14] on his rose-pink face.
4. The answer
“Bill,” I say, “Don't you have any heart diseases?”
“No, why[15]?”
“Then you should turn around”.
Bill turns and sees the boy, sits down on the ground and begins to pluck at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my plan was to make the whole job immediately and that we would get the ransom by midnight. So Bill agreed to give the kid a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as soon as he felt a little better.
Exactly on time, a boy rides up the road on a bicycle, sees the box, puts a piece of paper into it and pedals away back to Summit.
I waited for an hour and then I got down from the tree, got the note and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note and read it to Bill.
Two Desperate Men.
Gentlemen: I got your letter. I think you ask too much, and I make you my offer, which I believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars, and I agree to take him back. I advise you to come at night, because the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they would do to anybody who brought him back.
Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.
“Sam,” said Bill, “what's two hundred and fifty dollars? We've got the money. One more night of this kid will send me in Bedlam. You aren't going to let the chance go[16]?”
I wasn't.
We took him home that night. We made him go by telling him that his father bought a silver-mounted gun and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.
When the kid found out that we were going to leave him at home, he started to cry and grabbed Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a plaster.
“How long can you hold him?” asks Bill.
“I'm not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset, “but I think I can promise you ten minutes.”
“Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes I can cross the Central, Southern, Middle Western States and get to the Canadian border.”
And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch up with him.
Luck
Mark Twain
1. The student
It was at a banquet in London in honor of one of the two or three English military names of this generation. For some reasons I will not tell his real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby… What a fascination there is in a famous name!