Moon-Face, and Other Stories. Джек Лондон
Читать онлайн книгу.
I flashed my dough and Slim sent several of the younger men off to buy the booze. Take my word for it, Anak, it was a blow-out memorable in Trampdom to this day. It’s amazing the quantity of booze thirty plunks will buy, and it is equally amazing the quantity of booze outside of which twenty stiffs will get. Beer and cheap wine made up the card, with alcohol thrown in for the blowd-in-the-glass stiffs. It was great—an orgy under the sky, a contest of beaker-men, a study in primitive beastliness. To me there is something fascinating in a drunken man, and were I a college president I should institute P.G. psychology courses in practical drunkenness. It would beat the books and compete with the laboratory.
“All of which is neither here nor there, for after sixteen hours of it, early next morning, the whole push was copped by an overwhelming array of constables and carted off to jail. After breakfast, about ten o’clock, we were lined upstairs into court, limp and spiritless, the twenty of us. And there, under his purple panoply, nose crooked like a Napoleonic eagle and eyes glittering and beady, sat Sol Glenhart.
“ ‘John Ambrose!’ the clerk called out, and Chi Slim, with the ease of long practice, stood up.
“ ‘Vagrant, your Honor,’ the bailiff volunteered, and his Honor, not deigning to look at the prisoner, snapped, ‘Ten days,’ and Chi Slim sat down.
“And so it went, with the monotony of clockwork, fifteen seconds to the man, four men to the minute, the mugs bobbing up and down in turn like marionettes. The clerk called the name, the bailiff the offence, the judge the sentence, and the man sat down. That was all. Simple, eh? Superb!
“Chi Slim nudged me. ‘Give’m a spiel, Cinders. You kin do it.’
“I shook my head.
“ ‘G’wan,’ he urged. ‘Give ‘m a ghost story The mugs’ll take it all right. And you kin throw yer feet fer tobacco for us till we get out.’
“ ‘L. C. Randolph!’ the clerk called.
“I stood up, but a hitch came in the proceedings. The clerk whispered to the judge, and the bailiff smiled.
“ ‘You are a newspaper man, I understand, Mr. Randolph?’ his Honor remarked sweetly.
“It took me by surprise, for I had forgotten the Cowbell in the excitement of succeeding events, and I now saw myself on the edge of the pit I had digged.
“ ‘That’s yer graft. Work it,’ Slim prompted.
“ ‘It’s all over but the shouting,’ I groaned back, but Slim, unaware of the article, was puzzled.
“ ‘Your Honor,’ I answered, ‘when I can get work, that is my occupation.’
“ ‘You take quite an interest in local affairs, I see.’ (Here his Honor took up the morning’s Cowbell and ran his eye up and down a column I knew was mine.) ‘Color is good,’ he commented, an appreciative twinkle in his eyes; ‘pictures excellent, characterized by broad, Sargent-like effects. Now this … t his judge you have depicted … you, ah, draw from life, I presume?’
“ ‘Rarely, your I Honor,’ I answered. ‘Composites, ideals, rather … er, types, I may say.’
“ ‘But you have color, sir, unmistakable color,’ he continued.
“ ‘That is splashed on afterward,’ I explained.
“ ‘This judge, then, is not modelled from life, as one might be led to believe?’
“ ‘No, your Honor.’
“ ‘Ah, I see, merely a type of judicial wickedness?’
“ ‘Nay, more, your Honor,’ I said boldly, ‘an ideal.’
“ ‘Splashed with local color afterward? Ha! Good! And may I venture to ask how much you received for this bit of work?’
“ ‘Thirty dollars, your Honor.’
“ ‘Hum, good!’ And his tone abruptly changed. ‘Young man, local color is a bad thing. I find you guilty of it and sentence you to thirty days’ imprisonment, or, at your pleasure, impose a fine of thirty dollars.’
“ ‘Alas!’ said I, ‘I spent the thirty dollars in riotous living.’
“ ‘And thirty days more for wasting your substance.’
“ ‘Next case!’ said his Honor to the clerk.
“Slim was stunned. ‘Gee!’ he whispered. ‘Gee the push gets ten days and you get sixty. Gee!’ ”
Leith struck a match, lighted his dead cigar, and opened the book on his knees. “Returning to the original conversation, don’t you find, Anak, that though Loria handles the bipartition of the revenues with scrupulous care, he yet omits one important factor, namely—”
“Yes,” I said absently; “yes.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.