Читать книгу Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life онлайн

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"Mountain Grills!" he roared. "Mountain Grills! The lowest of the low! The vilest of the vile!"

"Mr. Gant! Mr. Gant!" pleaded Jannadeau.

"What's the matter with you, W.O.?" asked Will Pentland, looking up innocently from his fingers. "Had something to eat that didn't agree with you?"—he winked pertly at Duncan, and went back to his fingers.

"Your miserable old father," howled Gant, "was horsewhipped on the public square for not paying his debts." This was a purely imaginative insult, which had secured itself as truth, however, in Gant's mind, as had so many other stock epithets, because it gave him heart-cockle satisfaction.

"Horsewhipped upon his public square, was he?" Will winked again, unable to resist the opening. "They kept it mighty quiet, didn't they?" But behind the intense good-humoured posture of his face, his eyes were hard. He pursed his lips meditatively as he worked upon his fingers.

"But I'll tell you something about him, W.O.," he continued after a moment, with calm but boding judiciousness. "He let his wife die a natural death in her own bed. He didn't try to kill her."