Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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"You haven't seen it, have you, Jim?" Southby asked.

"Seen what?" I inquired.

"The room," Allen Southby said. "I think it's amusing, don't you? It's given me a lot of fun." He added that the superintendent of buildings and his sister Martha, who had come from Minnesota to keep house for him, had let him fix it up exactly as he wanted.

"You ought to have a spinning wheel," I said, "just over by the fire, so the flickering from the backlog would strike its spokes on a long winter evening."

"You really mean," said Allen, "that I ought to have a spinning wheel? Or are you simply trying to be funny?"

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Oh," said Allen, "you're trying to be funny. But honestly don't you like it?"

"There's one thing else you might have," I said. "You haven't got a pair of ox-bows."

"Jim," he asked, "don't you really like it?"

"Do you care whether I do or not?" I asked.

"Well," said Allen Southby, "you haven't changed much, Jim."

"Haven't I?" I said. "It's kind of you to remember what I used to be." Then when he looked hurt, I added: "Not that you had any reason to, not the slightest reason."