Читать книгу Soldiers' Pay онлайн

85 страница из 88

‘Now,’ cried his host, ‘make yourself comfortable (even Jones found irony in this) while I find something that will quench thirst.’

The guest regained his composure in a tidy, shabby room. Upon a rag rug a desk bore a single white hyacinth in a handleless teacup, above a mantel cluttered with pipes and twists of paper hung a single photograph. There were books everywhere—on shelves, on window ledges, on the floor: Jones saw the Old Testament in Greek in several volumes, a depressing huge book on international law, Jane Austen and Les Contes Drolatiques in dog-eared amity: a mutual supporting caress. The rector re-entered with milk in a pitcher of blue glass and two mugs. From a drawer he extracted a bottle of Scotch whisky.

‘A sop to the powers,’ he said, leering at Jones with innocent depravity. ‘Old dog and new tricks, my boy. But your pardon: perhaps you do not like this combination?’

Jones’s morale rose balloon-like. ‘I will try any drink once,’ he said, like Jurgen.

‘Try it, anyway. If you do not like it you are at perfect liberty to employ your own formula.’