Читать книгу My Ten Years in a Quandary - Robert C Benchley - Страница 12

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Next to our own system of justice, that in vogue in the interior of Africa has the most laughs in it. They work on the Evil Eye Theory, and the complications that arise from being accused of having the Evil Eye are ludicrous in the extreme.

Mr. MacGregor was accused of having the Evil Eye, that Summer we were in Africa, and my sides ached at the antics he had to go through to prove his innocence. (As a matter of fact, he was guilty, and it cost us plenty to buy the witch doctor, or prosecutor, off.)

* * * * *

The witch doctor came to me first and told me that I had better get my friend out of town, as several housewives had claimed that he was going around looking at their cooking and spoiling it. (MacGregor had been in trouble several times in America on the same charge.)

I said that our defense would be that the cooking would have been bad anyway, and that this was just an alibi on the part of the housewives, but the witch doctor said we couldn't get away with that. He said that the only way that MacGregor could prove his innocence would be to walk over red hot stones.

So I went to MacGregor and said:

"There is talk going around town about your having the Evil Eye."

"That's not the Evil Eye," he replied, rubbing it. "That's just hangover. I'm off that native stuff from now on."

* * * * *

"It's not as simple to explain away as all that," I said. "The witch doctor says that you've got to give proof that you haven't got it."

"Will he come here, or do I have to go to his office?" asked MacGregor, still in the dark as to the seriousness of the accusation.

"All you have to do is go out in the public square and walk over some red hot stones," I explained.

"How far is the public square?" he asked. "I haven't got all day, you know."

"You go right down our street and turn to the left," I said. "They're heating the stones up now. You can leave your shoes here, as you have to go barefoot."

"That's a horse of a different color," said MacGregor, taking off his shoes. "Suppose I get slivers on the way down there?"

"Go down on your bicycle," I suggested.

* * * * *

"It looks to me like a fool's errand," he said. But off he went on his bicycle to the public square, like the old Navy man that he is. I have always said that there's no training for a boy like the Navy.

I stayed at home, as MacGregor had left a lot of work undone (I am always the fall guy who ends up by doing the work around the house), and besides, I wasn't going to stand around and watch MacGregor make a monkey of himself in public.

I was in the middle of a nap when he got back, so he tiptoed around for a while in order not to awaken me. The guy has his sweet side, too. When I woke up I asked him how it went.

"O. K.," he said. "I ad-libbed a little and got some laughs that weren't on the routine." Always clowning, MacGregor is.

"What about the Evil Eye?" I asked.

"Just a little in the right one," he replied. "Nothing that glasses won't correct. What's for supper?"

"Don't make a god of your stomach, MacGregor," I replied.

This got him sore, and he didn't speak until we got back to America.