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Somerset Maugham. The Luncheon. Ч.6

Somerset Maugham. The Luncheon

Part 6

‘Coffee?’ I said.

‘Yes, just an ice-cream and coffee,’ she answered.

It was all the same to me now, so I ordered coffee for myself and an ice-cream and coffee for her.

‘You know, there’s one thing I thoroughly believe in,’ she said, as she ate the ice-cream. ‘One should always get up from a meal feeling one could eat a little more.’

‘Are you still hungry?’ I asked faintly.

‘Oh, no, I’m not hungry; you see, I don’t eat luncheon. I have a cup of coffee in the morning and then dinner, but I never eat more than one thing for luncheon. I was speaking for you.’

‘Oh, I see!’

Then a terrible thing happened. While we were waiting for the coffee, the head waiter, with a smile on his false face, came up to us bearing a large basket full of huge peaches. Peaches were not in season then. Lord (Бог) knew what they cost. I knew too — a little later, for my guest, going on with her conversation, absent-mindedly took one. ‘You see, you’ve filled your stomach with a lot of meat and you can’t eat any more. But I’ve just had a snack and I shall enjoy a peach.’

The bill came and when I paid it I found that I had only enough for a quite inadequate tip. Her eyes rested for a moment on the three francs I left for the waiter and I knew that she thought me mean. But when I walked out of the restaurant I had the whole month before me and not a penny in my pocket.

‘Follow my example,’ she said as we shook hands, ‘and never eat more than one thing for luncheon.’

‘I’ll do better than that,’ I answered. ‘I’ll eat nothing for dinner tonight.’

‘Humorist!’ she cried gaily, jumping into a cab. ‘You’re quite a humorist!’

But I have had my revenge at last. Today she weighs twenty-one stone (мера веса = 6,34 кг).