33 лучших юмористических рассказа на английском / 33 Best Humorous Short Stories

Fortunately, extreme measures of this nature were unnecessary, for after a few moments Surrennes calmed down, and seating himself beside me on the cot, drained his water-pitcher to the dregs, and began.

�Excuse me for not offering you a drink,’ he said, �but the wine they serve here while moist is hardly what a connoisseur would choose except for bathing purposes, and I compliment you by assuming that you do not wish to taste it.’

�Thank you,’ I said. �I do not like to take water straight, exactly.

I always dilute it, in fact, with a little of this.’

Here I extracted a small flask from my pocket and handed it to him.

�Ah!’ he said, smacking his lips as he took a long pull at its contents, �that puts spirit into a man.’

�Yes, it does,’ I replied, ruefully, as I noted that he had left me very little but the flask; �but I don’t think it was necessary for you to deprive me of all mine.’

�No; that is, you can’t appreciate the necessity unless you – er – you have suffered in your life as I am suffering.

You were never sent up yourself?’

I gave him a glance which was all indignation. �I guess not,’ I said. �I have led a life that is above reproach.’

�Good!’ he replied. �And what a satisfaction that is, eh? I don’t believe I’d be able to stand this jail life if it wasn’t for my conscience, which is as clear and clean as it would be if I’d never used it.’

�Would you mind telling me what your defence was?’ I asked.

�Certainly not,’ said he, cheerfully. �I’d be very glad to give it to you. But you must remember one thing – it is copyrighted.’

�Fire ahead!’ I said, with a smile. �I’ll respect your copyright. I’ll give you a royalty on what I get for the story.’

�Very good,’ he answered. �It was like this. To begin, I must tell you that when I was a boy preparing for college I had for a chum a brilliant fun-loving fellow named Hawley Hicks, concerning whose future various prophecies had been made.

His mother often asserted that he would be a great poet; his father thought he was born to be a great general; our head-master at the Scarberry Institute for Young Gentlemen prophesied the gallows. They were all wrong; though, for myself, I think that if he had lived long enough almost any one of the prophecies might have come true. The trouble was that Hawley died at the age of twenty-three. Fifteen years elapsed.