Читать книгу Dodsworth - Sinclair Lewis - Страница 23

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Tub Pearson—the Hon. Thos. J. Pearson, former state-senator, honorary LL.D. of Winnemac University, president of the Centaur State Bank, director in twelve companies, trustee of the Loring Grammar School and of the Zenith Art Institute, chairman of the Mayor’s City Planning Commission—Tub Pearson was still as much the jester as he had been at Yale. He and his lively wife Matilde, known as “Matey,” had three children, but neither viceregal honors nor domesticity had overlaid Tub’s view of himself as a natural comedian.

All through the poker-game, at the large table in Sam’s library, where they sat with rolled-up sleeves and loosened collars, gurgling their whisky-sodas with gratified sighs, Tub jabbed at Judge Turpin for sentencing bootleggers while he himself enjoyed his whisky as thoroughly as any one in Zenith. When they rested—that is to say, re-filled their glasses—at eleven, and Sam suggested, “May not have any more poker with you lads for a while, because Fran and I may trot over to Europe for six months or so,” then Tub had an opportunity suitable to his powers:

“Six months! That’s elegant, Sambo. You’ll come back with an English accent: ‘Hy sye, hold chappie, cawn’t I ’ave the honor of raising the bloominpot a couple o’ berries, dear old dream?’ ”

“Ever hear an Englishman talk like that?”

“No, but you will! Six months! Oh, don’t be a damnfool! Go for two months, and then you’ll be able to appreciate getting back to a country where you can get ice and a bathtub.”

“I know it’s a heresy,” Sam drawled, “but I wonder if there aren’t a few bath-tubs in Europe? Think I’ll go over and see. My deal.”

He did not show it; he played steadily, a rectangular-faced, large man, a cigar gripped in his mouth, cards dwarfed in his wide hand; but he was raging within:

“I’ve been doing what people expected me to, all my life. Football in college, when I’d as soon’ve stuck in the physics laboratory. Make money and play golf and be a good Republican ever since. Human cash-register! I’m finished! I’m going!”

But they heard from him only “Whoop you two more. Cards?”