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

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He knitted his brows like one who encounters a problem.

“Well, I enjoy the sunlight—the atmosphere—I go along this path, through that gate”—he jerked his head over his shoulder—“and round——”

“You don’t. You never have been. It’s all nonsense. There isn’t a way. To-night, for instance——”

“Oh! to-night! Let me see. Ah! I just glanced at my watch, saw that I had already been out just three minutes over the precise half-hour, decided there was not time to go round, turned——”

“You always do.”

He looked at me—reflected. “Perhaps I do, now I come to think of it. But what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

“Why, this!”

“This?”

“Yes. Why do you do it? Every night you come making a noise——”

“Making a noise?”

“Like this”—I imitated his buzzing noise.

He looked at me, and it was evident the buzzing awakened distaste. “Do I do that?” he asked.

“Every blessed evening.”

“I had no idea.”

He stopped dead. He regarded me gravely. “Can it be,” he said, “that I have formed a Habit?”

“Well, it looks like it. Doesn’t it?”