Читать книгу The First Men in the Moon (Illustrated Edition) онлайн

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“I sat across the edge of the manhole and looked down into the black interior”

“What have you got there?” I asked.

“Haven’t you brought anything to read?”

“Good Lord! No.”

“I forgot to tell you. There are uncertainties—The voyage may last—We may be weeks!”

“But——”

“We shall be floating in this sphere with absolutely no occupation.”

“I wish I’d known——”

He peered out of the manhole. “Look!” he said. “There’s something there!”

“Is there time?”

“We shall be an hour.”

I looked out. It was an old number of Tit-Bits that one of the men must have brought. Further away in the corner I saw a torn Lloyds’ News. I scrambled back into the sphere with these things. “What have you got?” I said.

I took the book from his hand and read, “The Works of William Shakespeare.”

He coloured slightly. “My education has been so purely scientific—” he said apologetically.

“Never read him?”

“Never.”

“He knew a little you know—in an irregular sort of way.”

“Precisely what I am told,” said Cavor.

I assisted him to screw in the glass cover of the manhole, and then he pressed a stud to close the corresponding blind in the outer case. The little oblong of twilight vanished. We were in darkness.