"Michael Moorcock - Oswald Bastable 1 - The Warlord of the Ai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

saw there. "You'd better come with me."

Unresistingly, he let me lead him down the harbour road until we reached Olmeijer's. The Indian
servants in the lobby weren't happy about my bringing in such an obvious derelict, but I led him
straight upstairs to my suite and ordered my houseboy to start a bath at once. In the meantime I
sat my guest down in my best chair and asked him what he would like to drink.

He shrugged. "Anything. Rum?"

I poured him a stiffish shot of rum and handed him the glass. He downed it in a couple of swallows
and nodded his thanks. He sat placidly in the chair, his hands folded in his lap, staring at the
table.

His accent, though distant and bemused, had been that of a cultivated man-a gentleman-and this
aroused my curiosity even further.

"Where are you from?" I asked him. "Singapore?"

"From?" He gave me an odd look and then frowned to himself. He muttered something which I could
not catch and then the houseboy entered and told me that he had prepared the bath.

"The bath's ready," I said. "If you'd like to use it I'll be looking out one of my suits. We're
about the same size."

He rose like an automaton and followed the house-boy into the bathroom, but then he re-emerged
almost at once. "My bag," he said.

I picked up the bag from the floor and handed it to him. He went back into the bathroom and closed
the door.

The houseboy looked curiously at me. "Is he some-some relative, sahib?"

I laughed. "No, Ram Dass. He is just a man I found on the quay."

Ram Dass smiled. "Aha! It is the Christian charity." He seemed satisfied. As a recent convert (the
pride of one of the local missions) he was constantly translating all the mysterious actions of
the English into good, simple Christian terms. "He is a beggar, then? You are the Samaritan?"

"I'm not sure I'm as selfless as that," I told him. "Will you fetch one of my suits for the
gentleman to put on after he has had his bath?"

Ram Dass nodded enthusiastically. "And a shirt, and a tie, and socks, and shoes-everything?"

I was amused. "Very well. Everything."

My guest took a very long time about his ablutions, but came out of the bathroom at last looking
much more spruce than when he had gone in. Ram Dass had dressed him in my clothes and they fitted
extraordinarily well, though a little loose, for I was considerably better fed than he. Ram Dass
behind him brandished a razor as bright as his grin. "I have shaved the gentleman, sahib!"