Читать книгу Soldiers' Pay онлайн

32 страница из 88

‘No, I don’t mind the light. You run along. I’ll call if I want anything.’

With the instinct of his race the Negro knew that his kindness was becoming untactful, yet he ventured again.

‘I bet you haven’t wired your folks to meet you. Whyn’t you lemme wire ’em for you? I can look after you far as I go, but who’s going to look after you, then?’

‘No, I’m all right, I tell you. You look after me as far as you go. I’ll get along.’

‘All right. But I am going to tell your paw how you are acting some day. You ought to know better than that, Cap’m.’ He said to Gilligan and Lowe: ‘You gentlemen call me if he gets sick.’

‘Yes, go on bow, damn you. I’ll call if I don’t feel well.’ Gilligan looked from his retreating back to the officer in admiration. ‘Loot, how do you do it?’

But the man only turned on them his puzzled gaze. He finished his drink and while Gilligan renewed them Cadet Lowe, like a trailing hound, repeated:

‘Say, sir, what kind of ships did you use?’

The man looked at Lowe kindly, not replying, and Gilligan said: