"H. L. Gold - Trouble With Water" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gold H. L)

hook arched upward and came to rest several inches above the surface, hanging quite steadily an
without support in the air.
"Well, go down in the water, damn you!" Greenberg said viciously, and he swished his ro
back and forth to pull the hook down from its ridiculous levitation. It refused.
Muttering something incoherent about being hanged before he'd give in, Greenberg hurled h
useless rod at the water. By this time he was not surprised when it hovered in the air above t
lake. He merely glanced red-eyed at it, tossed out the remains of the gnome's hat, and snatched u
the oars.
When he pulled back on them to row to land, they did not touch the water—naturally. Inste
they flashed unimpeded through the air, and Greenberg tumbled into the bow.
"A-ha!" he grated. "Here's where the trouble begins." He bent over the side. As he h
suspected, the keel floated a re-markable distance above the lake.
By rowing against the air, he moved with maddening slow-ness toward shore, like a mediev
conception of a flying machine. His main concern was that no one should see him in h
humiliating position.
At the hotel he tried to sneak past the kitchen to the bathroom. He knew that Esther waited
curse him for fish-ing the day before opening, but more especially on the very day that a nice bo
was coming to see her Rosie. If he could dress in a hurry, she might have less to say.
"Oh, there you are, you good-for-nothing! "
He froze to a halt.
"Look at you!" she screamed shrilly. "Filthy—you stink from fish!"
"I didn't catch anything, darling," he protested timidly.
"You stink anyhow. Go take a bath, may you drown in it! Get dressed in two minutes or les
and entertain the boy when he gets here. Hurry!"
He locked himself in, happy to escape her voice, started the water in the tub, and stripped fro
the waist up. A hot bath, he hoped, would rid him of his depressed feeling.
First, no fish; now, rain on week ends! What would Esther say—if she knew, of course. An
of course, he would not tell her.
"Let myself in for a lifetime of curses!" he sneered. "Ha!"
He clamped a new blade into his razor, opened the tube of shaving cream, and star
objectively at the mirror. The dominant feature of the soft, chubby face that stared back was
ugly black stubble; but he set his stubborn chin and glowered. He really looked quite fierce an
indomitable. Un-fortunately, Esther never saw his face in that uncharacteristic pose, otherwise s
would speak more softly.
"
Herman Greenberg never gives in!" he whispered between savagely hardened lips. "Rain o
week ends, no fish—any-thing he wants; a lot I care! Believe me, he'll come crawling to me befo
I go to him."
He gradually became aware, that his shaving brush was not getting wet. When he looked dow
and saw the water divid-ing into streams that flowed around it, his determined face slipped an
grew desperately anxious. He tried to trap the water—by catching it in his cupped hands, b
creeping up on it from behind, as if it were some shy animal, and shoving his brush at it—but
broke and ran away from his touch. Then he jammed his palm against the faucet. Defeated,
heard it gurgle back down the pipe, probably as far as the main.
"What do I do now?" he groaned. "Will Esther give it to me if I don't take a shave! But how?
. I can't shave without water."
Glumly, he shut off the bath, undressed and stepped into the tub. He lay down to soak. It too
a moment of horrified stupor to realize that he was completely dry and that he lay in a waterle
bathtub. The water, in one surge of revulsion, had swept out onto the floor.
"Herman, stop splashing!" his wife yelled. "I just washed that floor. If I find one little puddle I