"Charles L. Harness-An Ornament to His Profession" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

Company hasn't found you out."
Patrick no longer knew exactly what he meant by this routine, which he had started some years
before, when he was the newest chemical patent attorney with Hope Chemicals. He had first been a
chemist, but not a very good one, and then, after he and Lilas had got married, he had gone to law school
at night. After he got his LL. B. he had discovered, with more fatalism than dismay, that he was not a
very good lawyer, either. Yet, all was by no means lost. He was accepted by Hope's Patent Department.
And not just barely accepted; he was accepted as an excellent chemical patent attorney. He found this
incredible, but he did not fight it. And finally, he deliberately masked his supposed deficiencies; when he
was in the company of chemists, he spoke as a lawyer, and when with lawyers, he was a chemist. And
when with the chemical patent lawyers, he didn't mind being just a fifty-fifty chemist-lawyer. They had his
problem, too. It was like group therapy. Patent lawyers had a profound sympathy for each other.
From the beginning he had thrown himself into his work with zest. And now, with Lilas and the baby
gone, his work was not just an opiate; it was a dire necessity.
He got the kettle boiling in the kitchen. There was now a pink glow in the east. He looked out the
kitchen window and almost smiled. It was going to be a beautiful morning. He made the coffee quickly,
four spoons of coffee powder in his pint mug, took the first bitter, exhilarating sip, tightened his robe
about him, stepped out the kitchen door, and padded off down the garden path, holding his coffee mug
carefully.
This, again, was all part of his morning routine. Today, of course, there was a special reason.
Theoretically the house and grounds were ready and waiting for the little party tonight, but it would do no
harmed to take a look around, down by the pool.
***


The flagstone path lay down a grassy slope, and was lined with azaleas. He and Lilas had put them in
together. At the foot of the slope was a tiny stream, fed mostly by a spring half a mile away, on his
neighbor's property. In this little stream Patrick had contrived a series of pools by dint of fieldstone and
mortar, slapped together with such indolence into the stream side that the result was a pleasing but
entirely accidental naturalness. These little pools wee bordered with watercress, cat-o'-nine-tails,
arrowhead, water iris, and lovely things with names he could no longer remember. He and Lilas had
splurged one summer and bought all manner of water plants by mail. They had got very muddy planting
them, and they had sorrowed over those that had died the next spring or that the baby had happily
yanked. And then suddenly everything had begun to grow like weeds, and in a wild way, it was all very
pretty.
The path along the stream led toward a grassy sward. Patrick stopped on the path a moment, and
listened. Yes, there it was, very faint, like a tinkling of tiny bells. He held his breath. Around the turn of
the path, and so far invisible, was the bench. He and Lilas used to sit here, overlooking the lily pond.
Only then, of course, it wasn't the lily pond, but the baby's wading pool. It was... how long ago?... that
she had splashed in the pool and her baby delight had shattered the garden peace. And that was what he
heard now. And he could hear Lilas' answering laughter. This had happened to him on many past
mornings. To him, it was not a conjured thing; it was faint, very far away, but it was real.
He began to walk again, and rounded the bend in the path. But as son as the pool and the bench came
in view, the sounds stopped abruptly. He had tried to deal with the phenomenon logically. This led him to
various alternative conclusions, neither of which he completely disbelieved: (a) he was subject to
hallucinations; (b) Lilas and the baby were really there.
Patrick sighed and looked about him. Here, all within a few steps of each other, were the lily pool, the
benches, the outdoor grill, and the arbor. The arbor was a simple structure, framed with two-by-fours,
bordered with lilacs that had never bloomed, and which enclosed his "work table." This was a
stone-stepped table with a drawer, which contained writing materials and a few scribbled pages.
He looked into the arbor. From somewhere up in the ceiling of honeysuckle there was a flutter of