The Pothunters. P. G. WodehouseЧитать онлайн книгу.
say you won't?'
'Of course I won't. Why the deuce should I do your beastly dirty work for you?'
Barrett did not know what to make of this. Curiosity urged him to ask for explanations. Dignity threw cold water on such a scheme. In the end dignity had the best of it.
'Oh, very well,' he said, and they went on in silence. In all the three years of their acquaintance they had never before happened upon such a crisis.
The silence lasted until they reached the form-room. Then Barrett determined, in the interests of the common good—he and Reade shared a study, and icy coolness in a small study is unpleasant—to chain up Dignity for the moment, and give Curiosity a trial.
'What's up with you today?' he asked.
He could hardly have chosen a worse formula. The question has on most people precisely the same effect as that which the query, 'Do you know where you lost it?' has on one who is engaged in looking for mislaid property.
'Nothing,' said Reade. Probably at the same moment hundreds of other people were making the same reply, in the same tone of voice, to the same question.
'Oh,' said Barrett.
There was another silence.
'You might as well answer my name this afternoon,' said Barrett, tentatively.
Reade walked off without replying, and Barrett went to his place feeling that curiosity was a fraud, and resolving to confine his attentions for the future to dignity. This was by-product number one of the Pavilion burglary.
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