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

�But the horrible stranger of the horse-car; and, do you know, he recalled the whole thing to my mind, assuring me that he and the others had projected their astral bodies over to New York for a week, and had a magnificent time unperceived by all save myself, who was unconsciously psychic, and so able to perceive them in their invisible forms.’

�It was a mean trick on me, Mrs. Barrows,’ said Willis, ruefully, as soon as he had recovered sufficiently from his surprise to speak.

�Oh no,’ she replied, with a repetition of her charming laugh, which rearoused in Willis’s breast all the regrets of a lost cause.

�They didn’t intend it especially for you, anyhow.’

�Well,’ said Willis, �I think they did. They were friends of your husband’s, and they wanted to ruin me.’

�Ruin you? And why should the friends of Mr. Barrows have wished to do that?’ asked Mrs. Barrows, in astonishment.

�Because,’ began Willis, slowly and softly – �because they probably knew that from the moment I met you, I – But that is a story with a disagreeable climax, Mrs.

Barrows, so I shall not tell it. How do you like Boston?’

The Ghost Club

An unfortunate episode in the life of No. 5010

Number 5010 was at the time when I received the details of this story from his lips a stalwart man of thirty-eight, swart of hue, of pleasing address, and altogether the last person one would take for a convict serving a term for sneak-thieving. The only outer symptoms of his actual condition were the striped suit he wore, the style and cut of which are still in vogue at Sing Sing prison, and the closely cropped hair, which showed off the distinctly intellectual lines of his head to great advantage.

He was engaged in making shoes when I first saw him, and so impressed was I with the contrast between his really refined features and grace of manner and those of his brutish-looking companions, that I asked my guide who he was, and what were the circumstances which had brought him to Sing Sing.

�He pegs shoes like a gentleman,’ I said.

�Yes,’ returned the keeper. �He’s werry troublesome that way. He thinks he’s too good for his position. We can’t never do nothing with the boots he makes.’

�Why do you keep him at work in the shoe department?’ I queried.

�We haven’t got no work to be done in his special line, so we have to put him at whatever we can. He pegs shoes less badly than he does anything else.