"C M Kornbluth - The Cosmic Charge Account" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

"Very good," he said, and put the spider away. It was damnably realistic. Even knowing that it was a
gadget of twisted springs and plush, I cringed at the thought of its nestling in his pocket. With me it was
spiders. With the professor it was rats and asphyxiation. Toward the end of our mutual training program
it took only one part per million of sulfur dioxide gas in his vicinity to send him whirling into the posture of
defense, crane-like on one leg, tongue out and thumb to nose, the sweat of terror on his brow.



"I have something to tell you, Professor," I said. "So?" he asked tolerantly. And that did it. The
tolerance. I had been prepared to make my point with a dignified recital and apology, but there were two
ways to tell the story and I suddenly chose the second. "You're a phoney," I said with satisfaction.
"WhatT he gasped.



"A phoney. A fake. A hoaxer. A self-deluding crackpot. Your Functional Epistemology is a farce. Let's
not go into this thing kidding ourselves."



His accent thickened a little. "Led me remind you, Mr. Morris, that you are addressing a Doctor of
Philosophy of the University of Gottingen and a member of the faculty of the University of Basle."



"You mean a privat-dozent who teaches freshman logic. And I seem to remember thatGottingenrevoked
your degree."
He said slowly: "I have known all along that you were a fool, Mr. Norris. Not until now did I realize that
you are also an anti-Semite. It was the Nazis who went through an illegal ceremony of revocation."



"So that makes me an anti-Semite. From a teacher of logic that's very funny." "You are correct," he said
after a long pause. "I with-



draw my remark. Now, would you be good enough to amplify yours?"



"Gladly, Professor. In the first place—"



I had been winding up the rubber rat in my pocket. I yanked it out and tossed it into his lap where it
scrabbled and clawed. He yelled with terror, but the yell didn't cost him a split second. Almost before it
started from his throat he was standing one-legged, thumb to nose, tongue stuck out.