The Reluctant Vampire. Eric Morecambe

Чтение книги онлайн.

      A soldier’s in love with his rifle,

      A sailor’s in love with his deck,

      A Vampire’s in love when he kisses a girl

      And leaves two holes in her neck

      He swallowed the blood red liquid in one fast gulp. The other two customers kept their eyes averted from Victor, not wanting to antagonise him in any way and not wanting to be noticed by him either. Victor smacked his lips and said:

      ‘Excellent. Really very gutt. Eighteen years olt, I vould say, ya?’

      The landlord picked up the bottle and looked at it before answering. ‘Nineteen,’ he said.

      ‘Nineteen? Vos she really? I vould haff said eighteen. Maybe, mine bar-keeping frent, you are keeping it too cool. I don’t like it ven it’s too cool. Unterstant, Grabbo? I don’t like it ven it’s too colt, ya?’

      ‘Yes, Sir.’ Grabbo grovelled. Areta continued to clear the tables although she had done them twice already.

      Victor watched her, a smile coming to his lips. ‘You know somethink, Grabbo?’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘You daughter has become very beautiful, ya?’

      ‘Er … thank you, Sire.’

      ‘Ya, very beautiful inteed. Giff me a drink off the twenty year olt.’

      Grabbo filled the waiting glass from another hidden bottle.

      ‘Vill you join me, mine frent?’

      ‘Er no, Your Greatness. Er … I’m off it at the moment. I’m … er … trying to lose weight,’ Grabbo quickly lied, not wanting to offend a customer.

      ‘I haff the perfect vay off losing veight. Vot you do is simple like your two customers over there.’ Victor looked very hard at the two other customers. ‘You eat nothing but roobs, ant then …’

      ‘Roobs?’ questioned Grabbo.

      ‘Yah, roobs.’

      ‘What are roobs, Sir?’

      ‘Roobs are a special fruit. They are very rare ant are only to be fount ten feet unterground.’

      ‘But, how will they help me to lose weight, if I may ask, Sire?’

      ‘It’s obvious. The exercise vile you are diggink for them. And then, ven you haff fount them you von’t eat them because they have such a horrit taste. That vay you vill lose even more veight, ya?’ Here Victor burst into almost uncontrollable laughter; laughter so chilling that the mirror behind the bar cracked.

      Grabbo looked into the mirror. He could see his own reflection and the look of terror on his own pale face. He could also see the entire room. But he could not see Victor who was stood next to him because, being a Vampire, Victor had no reflection.

      ‘I’m sorry, mine frent,’ Victor said, looking at the cracked mirror and although Grabbo couldn’t see the reflection of Victor, Victor looked towards the mirror and straightened his tie.

      A long scratch at the door of the tavern made everyone, including Victor, turn their heads. No one moved. The door slowly creaked open. There stood a smiling werewolf, a man covered in long, shaggy wolfhair looking a bit dishevelled on account of the rather strong wind. He had the werewolf’s almost red, fiery eyes and long, canine teeth. He stood erect in the doorway with the wind blowing his long hair as a woman blows on a fur coat. King Victor looked at him and thought he looked like a rather untidy crow’s nest.