30 лучших рассказов британских писателей / 30 Best British Short Stories

Even while he was apologising for them I retired to the smoking-room, where I found the cigarettes so badly rolled that they would not keep alight. After a little I remembered that I wanted to see Myddleton Finch about an improved saddle of which a friend of his has the patent. He was in the newsroom, and, having questioned him about the saddle, I said:

�By the way, what is this story about your swearing at one of the waiters?’

�You mean about his swearing at me,’ Myddleton Finch replied, reddening.

�I am glad that was it,’ I said; �for I could not believe you guilty of such bad form.’

�If I did swear–’ he was beginning, but I went on:

�The version which has reached me was that you swore at him, and he repeated the word. I heard he was to be dismissed and you reprimanded.’

�Who told you that?’ asked Myddleton Finch, who is a timid man.

�I forget; it is club talk,’ I replied, lightly. �But of course the committee will take your word.

Then our talk returned to the saddle, but Myddleton Finch was abstracted, and presently he said:

�Do you know, I fancy I was wrong in thinking that the waiter swore at me, and I’ll withdraw my charge to-morrow.’

Myddleton Finch then left me, and, sitting alone, I realised that I had been doing William a service. To some slight extent I may have intentionally helped him to retain his place in the club, and I now see the reason, which was that he alone knows precisely to what extent I like my claret heated.

For a mere second I remembered William’s remark that he should not be able to see the girl Jenny from the library windows. Then this recollection drove from my head that I had only dined in the sense that my dinner-bill was paid. Returning to the dining-room, I happened to take my chair at the window, and while I was eating a deviled kidney I saw in the street the girl whose nods had such an absurd effect on William.

The children of the poor are as thoughtless as their parents, and this Jenny did not sign to the windows in the hope that William might see her, though she could not see him. Her face, which was disgracefully dirty, bore doubt and dismay on it, but whether she brought good news it would not tell.