The excessively thin man glanced up from the puddle3 of lime that he was stirring and regarded the excessively fat man with a smile of meek4 interrogation.
“’Nother bucket o’ mortar, Willie Ooze, and don’t you put your ’ead on one side at me like a bloomin’ cockatoo.”
Mr. William Hughes stuttered an apology. “I was thin-thinking.”
“Thin-thinking!” The fat man laughed good-naturedly. Turning his back on his helper, he gave the brick which he had just laid an extra tap to emphasize his incredulity. “’Tisn’t like you.”
The thin man’s feelings were wounded. To the little boy who looked on this was evident from the way he swallowed. His Adam’s-apple took a run up his throat and, at the last moment, thought better of it. “But I was thinking,” he persisted; “thinking that I’d learnt something from stirring up this gray muck. If ever I was to kill somebody—you, for instance, or that boy—I’d know better than to bury you in slaked6 lime.”
“Uml Urn5!” The fat man gulped7 with surprise. He puckered8 his vast chin against his collar so that his voice came deep and strangled. “It’s scraps9 o’ knowledge like that as saves men from the gallers. If ’alf the murderers that is ’anged ’ad come to me first, they wouldn’t be ’anging. But—but——” He seemed at last to realize the unkind implication of Mr. Hughes’s naive10 confession11. “But I’d make four o’ you, Willyum! You couldn’t kill me, however you tried.”
In the face of contradiction Mr. Hughes forgot his nervousness. “I could.” he pleaded earnestly. “I’ve often thought about it. I’d put off till you was stooping, and then jump. What with you being so short of breath and me being so long in the arms and legs, why——! I’ve planned it out many times, you and me being such good friends and so much alone together.”
The face of the fat man grew serious with disapproval12. “You? ’ave, ’ave you! You’ve got as far as that! You’re a nice domestic pet, I must say, to keep unchained to play with the children.” He attempted to go on with his bricklaying, but the memory of Mr. Hughes’s long arms and legs so immediately behind him was disturbing. He swung round holding his trowel like a weapon. “Don’t like your way of talking; don’t like it. O’ course you’ve ‘ad your troubles; for them I make allowances. But I don’t like it, and I don’t mind telling you. Um! Um!”
The thin man was crestfallen13; he had hoped to give pleasure. “But I thought you liked murders.”
“Like ’em! I enjoy them—so I do.” The fat man spoke14 tartly15. “But when you make me the corpse16 of your conversations, you presoom, Mr. Ooze, and I don’t mind telling you—you really do. Let that boy be the corpse next time; leave me out of it—— ’Nother bucket o’ mortar.”
That boy, who was sole witness to this quarrel, was very small—far smaller than his age. In the big walled garden of Orchid17 Lodge18 he felt smaller than usual. Everything was strange; even the whispered sigh of dead leaves was different as they swam up and swirled19 in eddies20. In his own garden, only six walls distant, their sigh was gentle as Dearie’s footstep—but something had happened to Dearie; Jimmie Boy had told him so that morning. “Teddy, little man, it’s happened again”—the information had left Teddy none the wiser. All he knew was that Jane had told the milkman that something was expected, and that the milkman had told the cook at Orchid Lodge. The result had been the intrusion at breakfast of the remarkable21 Mrs. Sheerug.
For a long while Mrs. Sheerug had been a staple22 topic of conversation between Dearie and Jimmie Boy. They had wondered who she was. They had made up the most preposterous23 tales about her and had told them to Teddy. They would watch for her to come out of her house six doors away, so that as she passed their window in Eden Row Jimmie Boy might make rapid sketches24 of her trotting25 balloon-like figure. He had used her more than once already in books which he had been commissioned to illustrate26. She was the faery-godmother in his Cinderella and Other Ancient Tales: With!6 Plates in color by James Gurney. She was Mother Santa Claus in his Christmas Up to Date. They had rather wanted to get to know her, this child-man and woman who seemed no older than their little son and at times, even to their little son, not half as sensible. They had wanted to get to know her because she was always smiling, and because she was always upholstered in such hideously27 clashing colors, and because she was always setting out burdened on errands from which she returned empty-handed. The attraction of Mrs. Sheerug was heightened by Jane’s, the maid-of-all-work’s, discoveries: Orchid Lodge was heavily in debt to the local tradesmen and yet (it was Dearie who said “And yet.” with a sigh of envy), and yet its mistress was always smiling.
When Mrs. Sheerug had invaded Teddy’s father that morning, she had come arrayed for conquest. She had worn a green plush mantle28, a blue bonnet29 and, waving defiance30 from the blue bonnet, a yellow feather.
“I’m a total stranger,” she had said. “Go on with your breakfast, Mr. Gurney, I’ve had mine. I’ll watch you. Well, I’ve heard, and so I’ve dropped in to see what I can do. You mustn’t mind me; trying to be a mother to everyone’s my foible. Now, first of all, you can’t have that boy in the house—boys are nice, but a nuisance. They’re noisy.”
“But Teddy, I mean Theo, isn’t.”
It was just like Jimmie Boy to call him Theo before a stranger and to assume the r么le of a respected parent.
Mrs. Sheerug refused to be contradicted. She was cheerful, but emphatic31. “If he never made a noise before, he will now. As soon as I’ve made Theo comfortable, I’ll come back to take care of you.”
Making Theo comfortable had consisted in leading him down the old-fashioned, little-traveled street, on one side of which the river ran, guarded by iron spikes32 like spears set up on end, and turning him loose in the strange garden, where he had overheard a fat man accusing a thin man of murderous intentions.
Teddy looked round. The walls were too high to climb. If he shouted for help he might rouse the men’s enmity. Neither of them seemed to be annoyed with him at present, for neither of them had spoken to him. There was no alternative—he must stick it out. That’s what his father told Dearie to do when pictures weren’t selling and bills were pressing. Already he had picked up the philosophy that life outlasts33 every difficulty—every difficulty except death.
Mr. Hughes, having supplied the bucket of mortar, was trying to make himself useful in a new direction. The groan34 and coughing of a saw were heard. The fat man dropped his trowel and turned. He watched Mr. Hughes sorrowfully.
“Mr. Ooze, that’s no way to make a job o’ that” For the first time he addressed the little boy: “He’s as busy as a one-armed paper-’anger with the itch35 this s’morning. Bless my soul, if he isn’t sawing more ground than wood.” Then to Mr. Hughes: “’Ere, give me that. Now watch me; this is the way to do it.”
The fat man took the saw from the meek man’s unresisting hand. “You lay it so,” he said. He laid the saw almost horizontal with the plank36. The thin man leant forward that he might profit by instruction, and nodded.
“And now,” said the fat man, “you get all your weight be’ind it and drive forward.”
As he drove forward the blade slipped and jabbed Mr. Hughes’s leg. Mr. Hughes sat down with a howl and drew up his trousers to inspect the damage. When the fat man had examined the scratch and pronounced it not serious, he proposed a rest and produced a pipe. “Nice smoke,” he said, “is more comforting than any woman, only I wish I’d known it before I married.” Then he became aware that he alone was smoking.
“What, lost yours, Mr. Ooze? Just what one might expect! You’re the most unlucky chap I ever met, yes, and careless. You bring your troubles on yourself, Willie Ooze. First you go and lose a wife that you never ought to ’ave ’ad, and now you lose something still more valuable.”
“Ah, yes!” The thin man ceased from searching through his pockets and heaved a sigh. “I lose everything. Suppose I’ll go on losing till the grave shuts down on this body o’ me—and then I’ll lose that. My ’air began to come out before I was twenty—tonics weren’t no good. Now I always ’ave to wear a ’at—do it even in the ’ouse, unless I’m reminded. And then, as you say, there was poor ’Enrietta. I’m always wondering whether I really lost ’er, or whether——”
“Expect she gave you the slip on purpose,” said the fat man. “Best forget it; consider ’er as so much spilt milk.”
“That’s just what I can’t do.” Mr. Hughes clasped his bony hands: “It don’t seem respectful to what’s maybe dead.”
As far as Teddy could make out from their conversation, ’Enrietta had once been Mrs. Hughes. On a trip to Southend she had insisted on taking a swing in a highflyer. To her great annoyance37 her husband had been too timid to accompany her, and she had had to take it by herself. The last he had seen of her was a flushed face and flapping skirt swooping38 in daring semi-circles between the heavens and the ground. When the swing had stopped and he pressed through the crowd to claim her, she had vanished.
Perhaps it was the blood on the thin man’s leg that prompted the fat man’s observation. “It might ’ave been that.”
“What?”
The fat man drew his finger across his throat suggestively. “That.” He repeated. “It might ’ave ’appened to your ’Enrietta.”
“Often thought it myself.” Mr. Hughes spoke slowly. “But—but d’you think anybody would suspect that I——?”
“They might.” The fat man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It’s usually chaps of your build that does it; as the lofty Mr. Shakespeare puts it, ’I ’ate those lean and ’ungry men.’”
“Very true! Very true! Lefroy was lean and ’ungry. I know, ’cause I once rode with ’im in the same railway carriage.”
Teddy listened, fascinated and horror-stricken, to the fat and thin man swapping39 anecdotes40 of murders past and present. For half an hour they strove to outdo each other in ghastliness and minuteness of details.
When they had returned to their work and Mr. Hughes was at a safe distance, the fat man spoke beneath his breath to the little boy: “He’s no good at anything. I keep him with me ’cause we both makes a ’obby of ’omicide—that’s the doctor’s word for the kind o’ illness we was talking about. Also,” here his voice became as refined as Teddy’s father’s, “he amuses me with his Cockney dialect He says he’s unlucky because he was born in a hansom-cab. Whenever I speak to him I call him Ooze and drop my aitches. It’s another of my hobbies—that and keeping pigeons. Pretending to be vulgar relieves my feelings. When one’s married and as stout41 as I am, if one doesn’t relieve one’s feelings one bursts.”
For the same reason that one lavishes42 endearments43 on a dog of uncertain temper, Teddy thought it wise to feign44 an interest in the fat man’s hobbies. “It can’t be very nice for them,” he faltered45.
“For ’oo?”
“The persons.”
“What persons?”
“The persons you do it to.”
“Do it to! Do it to! You’re making me lose my temper, which is bad for me ’ealth; that’s what you’re doing. Now, then, do what? Don’t beat about. Out with it.”
For answer the little boy drew a tremulous finger across his throat in imitation of one of the fat man’s gestures.
The fat man started laughing—laughing uproariously. His body shook like a jelly and fell into dimples. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. At last he shouted: “Mr. Ooze, come ’ere. This little boy—”
Then he stopped laughing suddenly and dropped his rough way of talking. The child’s face had gone desperately46 white. “Poor chap! Must have frightened you! Here, steady.”
“Now you’ve done it,” said Mr. Hughes, coming up from behind. “And when your wife knows, won’t you catch it!”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
mortar
|
|
| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
ooze
|
|
| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
puddle
|
|
| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
meek
|
|
| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
urn
|
|
| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
slaked
|
|
| v.满足( slake的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
gulped
|
|
| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
puckered
|
|
| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
scraps
|
|
| 油渣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
naive
|
|
| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
confession
|
|
| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
disapproval
|
|
| n.反对，不赞成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
crestfallen
|
|
| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
tartly
|
|
| adv.辛辣地，刻薄地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
corpse
|
|
| n.尸体，死尸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
orchid
|
|
| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
lodge
|
|
| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
swirled
|
|
| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
eddies
|
|
| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
staple
|
|
| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
preposterous
|
|
| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
sketches
|
|
| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
trotting
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
illustrate
|
|
| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
hideously
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
mantle
|
|
| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
bonnet
|
|
| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
defiance
|
|
| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
emphatic
|
|
| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
spikes
|
|
| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
outlasts
|
|
| v.比…长久，比…活得长( outlast的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
34
groan
|
|
| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
itch
|
|
| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
plank
|
|
| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
annoyance
|
|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
swooping
|
|
| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
swapping
|
|
| 交换，交换技术 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
anecdotes
|
|
| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
lavishes
|
|
| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
endearments
|
|
| n.表示爱慕的话语，亲热的表示( endearment的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
feign
|
|
| vt.假装，佯作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
faltered
|
|
| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |