Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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But Jim Cooley had loved to show the watch, and he found that parting with it would be much more painful than parting with Milly—so painful, in fact, that he got drunk in anticipation of his sorrow. Late that afternoon, already a reeling figure at which the town boys jeered along the streets, he found his way into the shop of a bijoutier, and when he issued forth into the street he was in possession of a ticket of redemption and a note for two thousand francs which, he figured dimly, was about one hundred and twenty dollars. Muttering to himself, he stumbled back to the square.

“One American can lick three Frenchmen!” he remarked to three small stout bourgeois drinking their beer at a table.

They paid no attention. He repeated his jeer.

“One American—” tapping his chest, “can beat up three dirty frogs, see?”

Still they didn’t move. It infuriated him. Lurching forward, he seized the back of an unoccupied chair and pulled at it. In what seemed less than a minute there was a small crowd around him and the three Frenchmen were all talking at once in excited voices.