"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 01 - The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Lady" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

'I will not contradict your wildest misstatement,' I
answered, smiling.

'And your name and address?' I asked, after we had settled
preliminaries.

A faint red spot rose quaintly in the centre of the
Cantankerous Old Lady's sallow cheek. 'My dear,' she
murmured 'my name is the one thing on earth I'm really
ashamed of. My parents chose to inflict upon me the most
odious label that human ingenuity ever devised for a
Christian soul; and I've not had courage enough to burst out
and change it.'

A gleam of intuition flashed across me, 'You don't mean to
say,' I exclaimed, 'that you're called Georgina?'

The Cantankerous Old Lady gripped my arm hard. 'What an
unusually intelligent girl!' she broke in. 'How on earth
did you guess? It is Georgina.'

'Fellow-feeling,' I answered. 'So is mine, Georgina Lois.
But as I quite agree with you as to the atrocity of such
conduct, I have suppressed the Georgina. It ought to be
made penal to send innocent girls into the world so
burdened.'

'My opinion to a T! You are really an exceptionally
sensible young woman. There's my name and address; I start
on Monday.'

I glanced at her card. The very copperplate was noisy.
'Lady Georgina Fawley, 49 Fortescue Crescent, W.'

It had taken us twenty minutes to arrange our protocols.
As I walked off, well pleased, Lady Georgina's friend ran
after me quickly.

'You must take care,' she said, in a warning voice.
'You've caught a Tartar.'

'So I suspect,' I answered. 'But a week in Tartary will
be at least an experience.'

'She has an awful temper.'

'That's nothing. So have I. Appalling, I assure you.
And if it comes to blows, I'm bigger and younger and
stronger than she is.'