Книга только для ознакомления
.
(This is not the same deal under which Gay has tucked away in her portside
skin two nineteenth-century bathrooms. Or is it? Well, I don't think it is. Must
inquire. Or should I let sleeping logs butter their own bed? Better, maybe.)
A gang port relaxed in the side of the yacht; a ramp slid down, and I
followed Lazarus up to the ship with my darling on my arm. As he stepped over
the side, music sounded: "It Ain't Necessarily So" from George Gershwin's
immortal Porgy and Bess. A long-dead "Sportin' Life" sang about the
impossibility of a man as old as Methuselah ever persuading a woman to bed with
him.
"Dora!"
A young girl's sweet voice answered, "I'm taking a bath. Call me later."
"Dora, shut off that silly song!"
"I must consult the captain of the day, sir."
"Consult and be damned! But stop that noise."
Another voice replaced the ship's voice: "Captain Lor speaking, Buddy Boy.
Do you have a problem?"
"Yes. Shut off that noise!"
"Buddy, if you mean the classical music now playing as a salute to your
arrival, I must say that your taste is as barbaric as ever. In any case I am
constrained from switching it off because this new protocol was established by
Commodore Hilda. I cannot change it without her permission."
"I'm henpecked." Lazarus fumed. "Can't enter my own ship without being
insulted. I swear to Allah that, once I've cleaned up Overlord, I'm going to buy
a Burroughs Bachelor Buggy, equip it with a Minsky Cerebrator, and go for a long
vacation with no women aboard
|
