Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

) Отстал всего на голову], I believe?’ he said, lifting one of the cricket balls and going through the motions of bowling it through the window.

�A short head,’ I agreed. All the same if it had been ten lengths[7 - All the same if it had been ten lengths – (разг.) Ничего бы не изменилось, отстань я на десять корпусов], I thought sourly. You got no present for losing, whatever the margin.

�My uncle had a fiver on you.’

�I’m sorry,’ I said formally.

Christopher pivoted on one toe and let go: the cricket ball crashed into the wall, leaving a mark. He saw me frowning at it and laughed. He had come straight into the office from Cambridge two months before, robbed of a cricket blue[8 - robbed of a cricket blue – (зд.) его не включили в команду по крикету (голубой – цвет спортивной формы Кембриджа)] through deteriorating eyesight and having failed his finals into the bargain.

He remained always in better spirits than I, who had suffered no similar reverses. We tolerated each other. I found it difficult, as always, to make friends, and he had given up trying.

Maggie came back from the pantry, sat down at her desk, took her nail varnish out of the stationery drawer and began brushing on the silvery pink. She was a large assured girl from Surbiton with a naturally unkind tongue and a suspect talent for registering remorse immediately after the barbs were securely in[9 - the barbs were securely in – (разг.

) колкости достигли цели].

The cricket ball slipped out of Christopher’s hand and rolled across Maggie’s desk. Lunging after it, he brushed one of his heaps of letters into a fluttering muddle on the floor, and the ball knocked over Maggie’s bottle of varnish, which scattered pretty pink viscous blobs all over the �We have received yours of the fourteenth ult[10 - ult – сокр.

от лат. ultimo, прошлого месяца].’

�Goddamn,’ said Christopher with feeling.

Old Cooper who dealt with insurance came into the room at his doddery pace and looked at the mess with cross disgust and pinched nostrils. He held out to me the sheaf of papers he had brought.

�Your pigeon[11 - Your pigeon – (сленг) Это по вашей части], Henry. Fix it up for the earliest possible’.

�Right.