"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 139 - Weird Valley" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Ham nodded. “Well, he actually sent this old bag of rocks to see Doc. We found that out, anyway.”

“You suppose we had better call Doc Savage?”

“Two hundred ninety years old,” Ham said bitterly. He leaned back and frowned at the ceiling. “No, I
don't think we had better call Doc. That old guy in there isn't two hundred and ninety years old, for the
simple reason that nobody lives to be two hundred and ninety years old these days.”

“You figure it follows therefore that somebody is lying?” Monk asked.

“Or joking. This thing could still be a gag.”

“Rayburn didn't sound as if it was any gag.”

“You can't tell about that. These medical men pull the dangdest practical jokes on each other sometimes.
Maybe Rayburn isn't the tower of dignity we thought he was.”

“That guy,” said Monk, “is so serious and dignified that he creaks.”

“Let's go in and give that old goat the third degree,” Ham suggested. “Maybe we can shake the joker out
of the deck.”
Methuselah Brown was sitting blissfully in a fog of choking blue pipe smoke when they went back into
the reception room.

“Got fooled, didn't you,” he said. “Found out Doc Rayburn sent me.”

Monk coughed. “What on earth are you smoking?”

“My private stock,” said the old man. “Grow it myself. Have grown it for a hundred and twenty years.
Got it from an Indian named Potato, who once met George Washington.”

“My, my, so now you knew George Washington,” Monk said.

“Never said it. Met his half-brother, Lawrence, once, though. Lawrence raised George after he was
about eleven years old. Just barely met Lawrence, though. Don't know a thing about him.”

Monk couldn't help grinning. The thing was absurd. “That's fine,” he said. “Knew Lincoln too, I
suppose.”

“Stop kidding me,” the old man said. “I know you don't believe me. Wouldn't have good sense if you
did, would you?”

Monk eyed the old gentleman thoughtfully, not sure exactly how to take Methuselah Brown.

“Are you serious about this thing?” Monk asked.

“What thing? Never get too serious about anything, on account of that's the way you get heart trouble
and things.”

“I refer,” said Monk, “to the very dubious matter of you being two hundred and ninety years old.”