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

thirsty.
In a spirit of experimentation, he mixed a soda. Of course its high water content made it slo
onto the floor. For breakfast he had surreptitiously tried fruit juice and coffee, without success.
With his tongue dry to the point of furriness, he sat weakly on a boardwalk bench in front of h
concession. It was Friday morning, which meant that the day was clear with a promise of inten
heat. Had it been Saturday, it naturally would have been raining.
"This year," he moaned, "I'll be wiped out. If I can't mix sodas, why should beer stay in a gla
for me? I thought I could hire a boy for ten dollars a week to run the hot-dog griddle; I cou
make sodas, and Esther could draw beer; but twenty or maybe twenty-five a week I got to pay
sodaman. I won't even come out square—a fortune I'll lose!"
The situation really was desperate. Concessions depend on too many factors to be anything b
capriciously profitable.
His throat was fiery and his soft brown eyes held a fierce glaze when the gas and electric we
turned on, the beer pipes connected, the tank of carbon dioxide hitched to the pump, and t
refrigerator started.
Gradually, the beach was filling with bathers. Greenberg writhed on his bench and envied them
They could swim and drink without having liquids draw away from them as if in horror. Th
were not thirsty.
And then he saw his first customers approach. His business experience was that mornin
customers buy only soft drinks. In a mad haste he put up the shutters and fled to the hotel.
"Esther!" he cried. "I got to tell you! I can't stand it—"
Threateningly, his wife held her broom like a baseball bat. "Go back to the concession, yo
crazy fool. Ain't you done enough already?"
He could not be hurt more than he had been. For once he did not cringe. "You got to help m
Esther."
"Why didn't you shave, you no-good bum? Is that any way—"
"That's what I got to tell you. Yesterday I got into an ar-gument with a water gnome—"
"A what?" Esther looked at him suspiciously.
"A water gnome," he babbled in a rush of words. "A little man so high, with big ears that
swims with, and he makes it rain—"
"Herman!" she screamed. "Stop that nonsense. You're crazy!"
Greenberg pounded his forehead with his fist. "I ain't crazy. Look, Esther. Come with me in
the kitchen."
She followed him readily enough, but her attitude made him feel more helpless and alone th
ever. With her fists on her plump hips and her feet set wide, she cautiously watched him try to f
a glass of water.
"Don't you see?" he wailed. "It won't go in the glass. It spills over. It runs away from me."
She was puzzled. "What happened to you?"
Brokenly, Greenberg told of his encounter with the water gnome, leaving out no sing
degrading detail. "And now I can't touch water," he ended. "I can't drink it. I can't make soda
On top of it all, I got such a thirst, it's killing me."
Esther's reaction was instantaneous. She threw her arms around him, drew his head down to h
shoulder, and patted him comfortingly as if he were a child. "Herman, my poor Herman!" s
breathed tenderly. "What did we ever do to deserve such a curse?"
"What shall I do, Esther?" he cried helplessly.
She held him at arm's length. "You got to go to a doctor," she said firmly. "How long can yo
go without drinking? Without water you'll die. Maybe sometimes I am a little hard on you, but yo
know I love you—"
"I know, mamma," he sighed. "But how can a doctor help me?"
"Am I a doctor that I should know? Go anyhow. What can you lose?"