"Bangs, John Kendrick - Houseboat on the Styx 02 - The Pursuit of the Houseboat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bangs John Kendrick)

allowing that fiend to kidnap our wives with impunity?"
"Not at all," interposed Bonaparte. "The time for action has arrived. All things
considered, he is welcome to Marie Louise, but the idea of Josephine going off
on a cruise of that kind breaks my heart."
"No question about it," observed Dr. Johnson. "We've got to do something if it
is only for the sake of appearances. The question really is, what shall be done
first?"
"I am in favor of taking a drink as the first step, and considering the matter
of further action afterwards," suggested Shakespeare, and it was this suggestion
that made the members unanimous upon the necessity for immediate action, for
when the assembled spirits called for their various favorite beverages it was
found that there were none to be had, it being Sunday, and all the
establishments wherein liquid refreshments were licensed to be sold being
closed--for at the time of writing the local government of Hades was in the
hands of the reform party.
"What!" cried Socrates. "Nothing but Styx water and vitriol, Sundays? Then the
House-boat must be recovered whether Xanthippe comes with it or not. Sir Walter,
I am for immediate action, after all. This ruffian should be captured at once
and made an example of."
"Excuse me, Socrates," put in Lindley Murray, "but, ah--pray speak in Greek
hereafter, will you, please? When you attempt English you have a beastly way of
working up to climatic prepositions which are offensive to the ear of a purist."

"This is no time to discuss style, Murray," interposed Sir Walter. "Socrates may
speak and spell like Chaucer if he pleases; he may even part his infinitives in
the middle, for all I care. We have affairs of greater moment in hand."
"We must ransack the earth," cried Socrates, "until we find that boat. I'm dry
as a fish."
"There he goes again!" growled Murray. "Dry as a fish! What fish, I'd like to
know, is dry?"
"Red herrings," retorted Socrates; and there was a great laugh at the expense of
the purist, in which even Hamlet, who had grown more and more melancholy and
morbid since the abduction of Ophelia, joined.
"Then it is settled," said Raleigh; "something must be done. And now the point
is, what?"
"Relief expeditions have a way of finding things," suggested Dr. Livingstone.
"Or rather of being found by the things they go out to relieve. I propose that
we send out a number of them. I will take Africa; Bonaparte can lead an
expedition into Europe; General Washington may have North America; and--"
"I beg pardon," put in Dr. Johnson, "but have you any idea, Dr. Livingstone,
that Captain Kidd has put wheels on this House-boat of ours, and is having it
dragged across the Sahara by mules or camels?"
"No such absurd idea ever entered my head," retorted the Doctor.
"Do you, then, believe that he has put runners on it, and is engaged in the
pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies tobogganing down the Alps?" persisted
the philosopher.
"Not at all. Why do you ask?" queried the African explorer, irritably.
"Because I wish to know," said Johnson. "That is always my motive in asking
questions. You propose to go looking for a house-boat in Central Africa; you
suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in search of it through Europe--all of