"Герберт Уэллс. Dr. Moreau" - читать интересную книгу автора

By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question.
"I always thought," he said deliberately, with a certain
accentuation of his flavouring of lisp, "that there was something
the matter with his ears, from the way he covered them.
What were they like?"

I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence.
Still, I could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar.
"Pointed," I said; "rather small and furry,-distinctly furry.
But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever set
eyes on."

A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us.
Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince.

"Yes?" he said.

"Where did you pick up the creature?"

"San Francisco. He's an ugly brute, I admit. Half-witted, you know.
Can't remember where he came from. But I'm used to him, you know.
We both are. How does he strike you?"

"He's unnatural," I said. "There's something about him-
don't think me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little sensation,
a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me. It's a touch-
of the diabolical, in fact."

Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. "Rum!" he said.
"I can't see it." He resumed his meal. "I had no idea of it,"
he said, and masticated. "The crew of the schooner must have
felt it the same. Made a dead set at the poor devil. You saw
the captain?"

Suddenly the puma howled again, this time more painfully.
Montgomery swore under his breath. I had half a mind to attack him
about the men on the beach. Then the poor brute within gave vent
to a series of short, sharp cries.

"Your men on the beach," said I; "what race are they?"

"Excellent fellows, aren't they?" said he, absentmindedly,
knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply.

I said no more. There was another outcry worse than the former.
He looked at me with his dull grey eyes, and then took some
more whiskey. He tried to draw me into a discussion about alcohol,
professing to have saved my life with it. He seemed anxious
to lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him. I answered