The Last Tycoon / Последний магнат. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“I just came up to see if you were real.”

“Why don’t you go to work?” Stahr said. “I haven’t had a laugh in the rushes for days.[53 - I haven’t had a laugh in the rushes for days. – (кино) Давненько я не смеялся на прогонах (просмотрах отснятой пленки).]”

“I’m afraid of a nervous breakdown.”

“You ought to keep in form,” Stahr said. “Let’s see you peddle your stuff .” He turned to Boxley: “Mike’s a gag-man[54 - gag-man – (разг.

) сочинитель острот, шуток, реплик, диалогов] – he was out here when I was in the cradle. Mike, show Mr. Boxley a double wing, clutch, kick and scram.”

“Here?” asked Mike.

“Here.”

“There isn’t much room. I wanted to ask you about —”

“There’s lot of room.”

“Well,” he looked around tentatively. “You shoot the gun.”

Miss Doolan’s assistant, Katy, took a paper bag, blew it open.

“It was a routine,” Mike said to Boxley, “ – back in the Keystone days.

” He turned to Stahr: “Does he know what a routine is?”

“It means an act,” Stahr explained. “Georgie Jessel talks about �Lincoln’s Gettysburg routine’[55 - Lincoln’s Gettysburg routine – имеется в виду знаменитая речь Абрахама Линкольна в 1863 г. в Геттисберге, Пенсильвания, в которой он говорил о солдатах Гражданской войны, погибших за правое дело].

”

Katy poised the neck of the blown-up bag in her mouth. Mike stood with his back to her.

“Ready?” Katy asked. She brought her hands down on the side. Immediately Mike grabbed his bottom with both hands, jumped in the air, slid his feet out on the floor one after the other, remaining in place and flapping his arms twice like a bird —

“Double wing,” said Stahr.

– and then ran out the screen door which the office boy held open for him and disappeared past the window of the balcony.

“Mr. Stahr,” said Miss Doolan, “Mr. Hanson is on the phone from New York.”

Ten minutes later he clicked his dictograph, and Miss Doolan came in. There was a male star waiting to see him in the outer office, Miss Doolan said.

“Tell him I went out by the balcony,” Stahr advised her.

“All right. He’s been in four times this week. He seems very anxious.