Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Hemmick listened with that exaggerated attention which men who have not prospered generally render to men who have. He would have continued to listen had Abercrombie become more expansive, for he was beginning faintly to associate him with an Abercrombie who had figured in the newspapers for several years at the head of shipping boards and financial committees. But Abercrombie, after a moment, made the conversation less personal.

“I didn’t realize you had so much heat here, I guess I’ve forgotten a lot in twenty-five years.”

“Why, this is a cool day,” boasted Hemmick, “this is cool. I was just sort of overheated from walking when I came up.”

“It’s too hot,” insisted Abercrombie with a restless movement; then he added abruptly, “I don’t like it here. It means nothing to me—nothing—I’ve wondered if I did, you know, that’s why I came down. And I’ve decided.

“You see,” he continued hesitantly, “up to recently the North was still full of professional Southerners, some real, some by sentiment, but all given to flowery monologues on the beauty of their old family plantations and all jumping up and howling when the band played ‘Dixie.’ You know what I mean,”—he turned to Hemmick,—“it got to be a sort of a national joke. Oh, I was in the game, too, I suppose, I used to stand up and perspire and cheer, and I’ve given young men positions for no particular reason except that they claimed to come from South Carolina or Virginia—” again he broke off and became suddenly abrupt—“but I’m through, I’ve been here six hours and I’m through!”