Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment. Gibbs George

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СКАЧАТЬ We don't allow any females in here."

      Her reply was a laugh which irritated Jerry exceedingly.

      "Well, I'm here," she said; "what are you going to do about it?"

      "Do about it?" Jerry advanced two or three paces and stood looking down at her. In our first conversation he told me that she seemed absurdly small, quite too insignificant to be so impudent. In our second conversation I elicited the fact that he thought her skin smooth; in our third that her lips were much redder than mine.

      When he got near her he paused, for she hadn't moved away as he had expected her to and only looked up at him and laughed.

      "Yes, do about it," she repeated.

      "You—you know I could—could throw you over the wall with one hand," he stammered.

      "Perhaps, but you wouldn't."

      "Why not?'

      "Because you're a gentleman."

      "Oh, am I?"

      "Yes. Or if you aren't you ought to be."

      He frowned at that, a little puzzled.

      "Where do you come from?" he asked.

      "I can't see how that can possibly be any business of yours."

      "H-m. How did you get in here?"

      "I followed my nose. How did you?"

      "I—I—I belong here."

      "It's an asylum, isn't it?" she asked quite coolly.

      "N—no." Jerry missed the irony. "Not at all. I live here. It's my place. You—you're the first woman that ever got in here, and I can't imagine how you did it. I—I don't want to be impolite, but I'm afraid you'll have to go at once."

      The sound of her laughter was most disconcerting. Jerry had no lack of a sense of humor and yet there was nothing that he could see to laugh at.

      "That's very amusing," she said. "A moment ago you were going to throw me over the wall and now you're afraid you're impolite."

      Jerry found himself smiling in spite of himself.

      "I—I don't suppose I really meant that," he muttered.

      "What? Throwing me over the wall or being polite?"

      He looked rather bewildered, I think, at the inanity of her conversation. Jerry wasn't much given to small talk.

      "I'm sorry you don't think I'm polite. I—I'm not used to talking to women. They're too fussy about trifles. What does it matter—"

      "I don't call throwing a female visitor over a wall a trifle," she broke in. "And it isn't quite hospitable. Now is it?"

      Jerry rubbed his head and regarded her seriously.

      "Now that you mention it, I don't suppose it is. But nobody asked you. You just came. Didn't you see the trespass signs?"

      "Oh, yes, they're all about," she said carelessly, as she picked up her tin specimen-box and turned away. "I didn't mean to stay. I followed a butterfly. He came in the iron railings, where the stream goes through the wall. I crawled under where the iron is bent. If you're afraid of women you'd better have it fixed."

      "Afraid!" It was one word that Jerry detested. "Afraid! That's funny. Do you think I'm afraid of you?"

      "Yes," she replied, eyeing him critically. "I rather think you are."

      "Well, I—I'm not. It would take more than a woman to make me afraid."

      Something in the turn of the phrase and tone of voice made her turn and examine him with a new interest.

      "You're a queer boy," she said.

      "How—queer?" he muttered.

      "You look and act as though you'd never seen a girl before."

      If he had known women better he wouldn't have believed that she meant what she said. As it was, her wizardry astounded him.

      "How can you tell that?"

      She was now regarding him wide-eyed in amazement.

      "It's true, then?" she gasped.

      "Yes, it's true. You're the first girl that I remember having seen. But what difference does that make? Why should I be afraid of you? You couldn't hurt a flea. You can talk pretty well, but talk never killed anybody."

      She seemed stricken suddenly dumb and regarded him with an air which to anyone but Jerry would have shown her as discomfited as he.

      "Do you mean that you've lived all your life a prisoner inside this wall and never seen a woman?" she asked incredulously.

      "That depends upon what you mean by prisoner," said Jerry. "If having everything you want, doing everything you want is being a prisoner, I suppose that's what I am."

      "Extraordinary! And you've had no curiosity to go out—to see the world?"

      "No. I'm going soon, but I don't care about it. There isn't anything out there half as good as what I've got."

      "How do you know if you haven't been there?"

      "Oh, I know. I've heard. I read a great deal."

      Jerry told me (in our second conversation) that he wondered why he still stood there talking to her. He supposed it was because he thought he had been impolite enough. But she made no move to go.

      "What have you heard?" she asked again. "I suppose you thought that a girl had horns and a tail."

      Unconsciously his gaze wandered down over her slim figure. Then he burst into a sudden fit of laughter.

      "You're funny," he said.

      "Not half as funny as I would be if I had them."

      "You might have a tail twisted under your dress for all I know. What do girls wear skirts for?"

      "To keep them warm. Why do you wear trousers?"

      "Trousers aren't silly. Skirts are."

      "That depends on who's in them."

      He was forced to admit the logic of that. Skirts might be silly, but she wasn't. She interested him, this strange creature that talked back, not in the least like Miss Redwood. The jade! Jerry did not know their tricks as I did. She was reading him, I haven't a doubt, like an open book. It was a pity. I hadn't yet prepared Jerry for this encounter. The girl had moved two or three paces away when she paused again.

      "What's your name?" she asked suddenly.

      "Jerry."

      "That's a nice name. I think it's like you."

      "How—like me?"

      "Oh, I don't know—boyish and rather jolly, in spite of being Jeremiah. It is Jeremiah, isn't it?"

      He СКАЧАТЬ