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.“The planer—”“Just that,” Jackie emphasized, digging her fingers into my biceps.“You’d have been killed today if you hadn’t had some extra good luck.Those pixies may be sloppy, but they pay their rent.”I got the angle.“Mr.Henchard’s luck worked differently, though.Remember when he kicked that rock down the beach steps, and they started to cave in? Me, I do it the hard way.I fall in the planer, sure, and a cylinder bounces after me and stops the machine but I’ll be out of a job till the planer’s fixed.Nothing like that ever happened to Mr.Henchard.”“He had a better class of tenant,” Jackie explained, with a wild gleam in her eye.“If Mr.Henchard had fallen in the planer, a fuse would have blown, I’ll bet.Our tenants are sloppy pixies, so we get sloppy luck.”“They stay,” I said.‘We own a slum.Let’s get out of here and go down to Terry’s for a drink.”We buttoned our raincoats and departed, breathing the fresh, wet air.The storm was slashing down as furiously as ever.I’d forgotten my flashlight, but I didn’t want to go back for it.We headed down the slope, toward Terry’s faintly visible lights.It was dark.We couldn’t see much through the storm.Probably that was why we didn’t notice the bus until it was bearing down on us, headlights almost invisible in the dimout.I started to pull Jackie aside, out of the way, but my foot slippedon the wet concrete, and we took a nosedive.I felt Jackie’s body hurtle against me, and the next moment we were floundering in the muddy ditch beside the highway while the bus roared past us and was gone.We crawled out and made for Terry’s.The barman stared at us, said, “Whew!” and set up drinks without being asked.“Unquestionably,” I said, “our lives have just been saved.”“Yes,” Jackie agreed, scraping mud from her ears.“But it wouldn’t have happened this way to Mr.Henchard.”The barman shook his head.“Fall in the ditch, Eddie? And you too? Bad luck!”“Not bad,” Jackie told him feebly.“Good.But sloppy.” She lifted her drink and eyed me with muddy misery.I clinked my glass against hers.“Well,” I said.“Here’s luck.” [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]