The Gift of the Magi / Дары волхвов. О. ГенриЧитать онлайн книгу.

      “But, brother Anthony, what good could your money have done?”

      “Sister,” said Anthony Rockwall. “I've got my pirate in a devil of a scrape. His ship has just been scuttled, and he's too good a judge of the value of money to let drown. I wish you would let me go on with this chapter.”

      The story should end here. I wish it would as heartily as you who read it wish it did. But we must go to the bottom of the well for truth.

      The next day a person with red hands and a blue polka-dot necktie, who called himself Kelly, called at Anthony Rockwall's house, and was at once received in the library.

      “Well,” said Anthony, reaching for his chequebook, “it was a good bilin' of soap. Let's see-you had $5,000 in cash.”

      “I paid out $300 more of my own,” said Kelly. “I had to go a little above the estimate. I got the express wagons and cabs mostly for $5; but the trucks and two-horse teams mostly raised me to $10. The motormen wanted $10, and some of the loaded teams $20. The cops struck me hardest-$50 I paid two, and the rest $20 and $25. But didn't it work beautiful, Mr. Rockwall? I'm glad William A. Brady wasn't onto that little outdoor vehicle mob scene. I wouldn't want William to break his heart with jealousy. And never a rehearsal, either! The boys was on time to the fraction of a second. It was two hours before a snake could get below Greeley's statue.”

      “Thirteen hundred-there you are, Kelly,” said Anthony, tearing off a check. “Your thousand, and the $300 you were out. You don't despise money, do you, Kelly?”

      “Me?” said Kelly. “I can lick the man that invented poverty.”

      Anthony called Kelly when he was at the door.

      “You didn't notice,” said he, “anywhere in the tie-up, a kind of a fat boy without any clothes on shooting arrows around with a bow, did you?”

      “Why, no,” said Kelly, mystified. “I didn't. If he was like you say, maybe the cops pinched him before I got there.”

      “I thought the little rascal wouldn't be on hand,” chuckled Anthony. “Good-by, Kelly.”

      The Green Door

      Suppose you should be walking down Broadway after dinner, with ten minutes allotted to the consummation of your cigar while you are choosing between a diverting tragedy and something serious in the way of vaudeville. Suddenly a hand is laid upon your arm. You turn to look into the thrilling eyes of a beautiful woman, wonderful in diamonds and Russian sables. She thrusts hurriedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates the one word, “parallelogram!” and swiftly flies down a cross street, looking back fearfully over her shoulder.

      That would be pure adventure. Would you accept it? Not you. You would flush with embarrassment; you would sheepishly drop the roll and continue down Broadway, fumbling feebly for the missing button. This you would do unless you are one of the blessed few in whom the pure spirit of adventure is not dead.

      True adventurers have never been plentiful. They who are set down in print as such have been mostly business men with newly invented methods. They have been out after the things they wanted-golden fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasure, crowns and fame. The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son-when he started back home.

      Half-adventurers-brave and splendid figures-have been numerous. From the Crusades to the Palisades they have enriched the arts of history and fiction and the trade of historical fiction. But each of them had a prize to win, a goal to kick, an axe to grind, a race to run, a new thrust in tierce to deliver, a name to carve, a crow to pick-so they were not followers of true adventure.