"C M Kornbluth - Time Bum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

said, 'Oh, yes—electricity!' and laughed his head off. And he kept ducking the question when I tried to
ask him in a nice way. Maybe he's some kind of a political refugee."



"Maybe . . ." Betty began dreamily, and then shut her mouth. She didn't want Walter laughing at her
again. As it was, he made her buy her science-fiction magazines downtown instead of at neighborhood
newsstands. He thought it wasn't becoming for his wife to read them. He's so eager for success, she
thought sentimentally.



That night while Walter watched a television variety show, she read a story in one of her magazines. (Its
cover, depicting a space ship and a girl in green bra and shorts, had been prudently torn off and thrown
away.) It was about a man from the future who had gone back in time, bringing with him all sorts of
marvelous inventions. In the end the Time Police punished him for unauthorized time traveling. They had
come back and got him, brought him back to his own time. She smiled. It would be nice if Mr. Clurg,
instead of being a slightly eccentric foreigner, were a man from the future with all sorts of interesting
stories to tell and a satchelful of gadgets that could be sold for millions and millions of dollars.



After a week they did have Clurg over for dinner. It started badly. Once more he managed to sit down
in empty air and crash to the floor. While they were brushing him off he said fretfully: "I can't get used to
not—" and then said no more.
 He was a picky eater. Betty had done one of her mother's specialties, veal cutlet with tomato sauce,
topped by a poached egg. He ate the egg and sauce, made a clumsy attempt to cut up the meat, and
abandoned it. She served a plate of cheese, half a dozen kinds, for dessert, and Clurg tasted them
uncertainly, breaking off a crumb from each, while Betty wondered where that constituted good manners.
His face lit up when he tried a ripe cheddar. He popped the whole wedge into his mouth and said to
Betty: "I will have that, please."



"Seconds?" asked Walter. "Sure. Don't bother, Betty. I'll get it." He brought back a quarter-pound
wedge of the cheddar.



Walter and Betty watched silently as Clurg calmly ate every crumb of it He sighed. "Very good. Quite
like—" The word, Walter and Betty later agreed, was see-mon-joe. They were able to agree quite early
in the evening, because Clurg got up after eating the cheese, said warmly, Thank you so much!" and
walked out of the house.



Betty said, "What—on—Earth!"