Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“I’ll try the restaurants.” He started down toward Sherry’s and had gone but half a block when he had an inspiration. The Duke’s picture was in some evening paper, and his name, too.

He bought a paper and sought for the picture with no result. He tried again and again. On his seventh paper he found it: “The Duke of Matterlane Visits American Millionaire.”

The Duke, a man with side whiskers and eye-glasses, stared menacingly at him from the paper. Garland heaved a sigh of relief, took a long look at the likeness and stuck the paper into his pocket.

“Now to business,” he muttered, wiping his drenched brow. “Duke or die.”

Five minutes later he entered Sherry’s, where he sat down and ordered ginger ale. There was the usual summer night crowd, listless, flushed, and sunburned. There was the usual champagne and ice that seemed hotter than the room; but there was no Duke. He sighed, rose, and visited Delmonico’s, Martin’s, at each place consuming a glass of ginger ale.

“I’ll have to cut out the drinking,” he thought, “or I’ll be inebriated by the time I find his royal nuisance.”