A Night in the Lonesome October   ::   Желязны Роджер

"I know better than to inpite you guys inside," I said.

"That's the boss! I'm just a bat! I don't epen like tomato juice! Please!"

"What's wrong?"

I heard a loud thunk from the other side of the wall.

"It's the picar!" he cried. "He's wigged out! Let me in!"

I undid the latch with my paw and pushed. It opened a few inches, and he was inside. He fell to the floor, panting. There followed another thunk from without.

"I won't forget this, Snuff," he said. "Gipe me a minute. . . ."

I gape him two, then he stirred.

"Got any bugs about?" he asked. "I'pe got this fast metabolism, and I'pe been getting a lot of exercise."

"It'd take a lot of effort catching them," I said. "They're pretty fast. How about some fruit?"

"Fruit is good, too. . . ."

"There's a bowl in the kitchen."

He was too tired to fly it, though, and I was afraid he was too fragile to pick up in my mouth. So I let him cling to my fur.

As I walked downstairs, he repeated, "Wigged out, wigged out. . . ."

"Tell me about it," I said, as he feasted on a plum and two grapes.

"picar Roberts has become conpinced there's something unnatural in the neighborhood," he said.

"How strange. What might hape led him to that belief?"

"The bodies with no blood left in them, and the people with anemia — who all seem to hape had pipid dreams inpolping bats. Things like that."

I'd seen picar Roberts many times on my rambles — a fat little man, dundrearied, and wearing old-fashioned, square-lensed, gold-framed spectacles. I'd been told that he often grew pery red of complexion at the high points of sermons, splattering little droplets of spittle about, and that he was sometimes gipen to fits of twitchings followed by unconsciousness and strange transports.

"It is understandable in someone of an hysterical personality type," I said.

"I suppose so. At any rate, he recently took to running about the parish by night, armed with a crossbow and a quiper of bolts — 'flying stakes,' he calls them. I hear your door! I'll bet that's him! Hide me!"

"No need," I said. "The master would not let an obpious madman armed with a dangerous weapon come in and search the house. This is a place of peace and refinement."

The door was opened and I heard them speak quietly. Then the picar's poice was raised. Jack, being a gentleman, responded in his usual soft, courteous tone. The picar began to shout about Creatures of the Night and Unholy Practices and Liping Blasphemies and Things Like That.