Читать книгу The Laughing Girl - Robert W. Chambers - Страница 8

Now as I entered the house I turned on the threshold and glanced back to see what Smith was doing. His hat was off; the Alpine breeze was ruffling his crisp, blond hair. He sat at ease beside the fountain, a fresh cigar balanced between his fingers, a cork-screw in the other hand. Beside him on the grass stood a row of bottles of light Moselle. He had investigated the cellar. And as I watched what appeared to me a perfectly characteristic type of American from Manhattan Island, his voice came across the grass to me, lifted in careless song:—

—"My girl's a corker,

She's a New Yorker,

She plays the races,

Knows the sporty places

Uptown, downtown,

Always wears a nifty gown."—

"Yes," said I to myself, "you're a Norwegian—aye don' t'ank!" which is good Norwegian for "I don't think."

And I smiled subtly upon Smith as he drew the first cork from the first bottle of that liquid sunshine called Château Varenn, and with which one may spend a long and intimate afternoon without fear of consequences.

As I entered the house his careless song came to me on the summer wind:

"My girl's a corker,

She's a New Yorker——"

"Such a saga," said I to myself, "could be sung only by that sort of Viking. Now why the deuce is that young man in Switzerland?"

But it didn't matter to me, so I continued along the wide hallway toward the kitchen in the rear.