Читать книгу My Ten Years in a Quandary - Robert C Benchley - Страница 3
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The Lost Locomotive
The day that Mr. MacGregor lost the locomotive was a confusing one for our accountants. They didn't know whom to charge it to.
"We have an account here called 'Alterations,'" said the head accountant (Mr. MacGregor). "We might charge it to that. Losing a locomotive is certainly an alteration in something."
"I am afraid that you are whistling in the dark, Mr. MacGregor," I said quietly.
"The point is not what account we are going to charge the lost locomotive to," I continued. "It is how you happened to lose it."
"I have already told you," he replied, with a touch of asperity, "that I haven't the slightest idea. I was tired and nervous and—well—I lost it, that's all!"
"As a matter of fact," he snapped, "I am not at all sure that the locomotive is lost. And, if it is, I am not at all sure that I lost it."
* * * * *
"I don't think that we need go into that point," I replied. "When a man takes a locomotive out and comes back without it, and is unable to explain what has become of it, the presumption is that he, personally, has lost it. How did you like those tangerines we had for lunch?"
"Only fair," MacGregor answered.
"You see?" I said. "You are getting cynical."
We have had a great deal of trouble about Mr. MacGregor's growing cynical. He looks at things with a bilious eye. It is bringing down the morale of the office force, and there are whole days at a time when we don't sell a thing.
* * * * *
"How often do you take that medicine I gave you?" I asked him.
MacGregor winced slightly. "Hot-diggidy!" he replied.
"That is not an answer to my question," I said, sternly.
"What were we just talking about?" he asked.
"You mean the tangerines?" I said, his cynicism still rankling in my mind.
"No," he replied. "Before that."
We both thought for a minute.
"Well, it couldn't have been very important," I said, laughing. This got him in good humor and we swung forward, double-time, along the road to work.
