Читать книгу Bizarre - Lawton Mackall - Страница 10

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Mortimer was as bold as orange-and-pink hosiery, and Simile was as elusive as a cake of castile soap. When, at the appointed hour, he repaired to her house, as punctual as a bill collector, she tried, like a street-car conductor, to put him off.

But his mind, like the face of a cutie, was made up. Becoming as eloquent as a man in a telephone booth which you are waiting to use, he said: "Simile, I love you!"

Her lips quivered like a ford, but the look in her eyes was as far away as Brooklyn.

"Ah, marry me" he pleaded, his voice sounding as hollow as a campaign pledge, "—or I shall be as wretched as porous custard."

He edged nearer to her, till he was almost as close as the air in the subway. He gazed anxiously at her face, the way a person in a taxicab gazes at the face of the meter. Her skin was smooth as a confidence man and clear as boarding-house soup. He put his arm about her slender waist, which was slim as a librarian's salary.

Yielding suddenly, like a treacherous garter, she murmured, in a voice as soft as stale crackers, while tears rushed to her eyes like shoppers to a bargain counter, "I am yours". And she clung to him like barbed wire.

A thrill of joy went through Mortimer like a highwayman. "Ah!" he cried. "Then I am as happy as a coincidence!"