Free Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 by What Dreams May Come (v1.1) Page B

gasogene,
that was called by Holmes and Watson in the old stories—and handed one to
Thunstone. “Cheers,” he said, lifting his own drink.
                 “Cheers,”
Thunstone echoed him, and sipped. It was scotch, of course. When the English
said whiskey, they meant scotch. It was good scotch.
                 “You
say you came here for curiosity's sake,” said Ensley. “With someone like you,
though, that means research. How does your research come on?”
                 “I
don't know if it’s truly research,” smiled Thunstone. “I can only say that I'm
glad I visited Claines. As for what I'm after, suppose I just call myself a
truth seeker.”
                 “Truth
seeker,” repeated Ensley, and took another swallow of his drink. “A looker into
the nature of reality, is that it? Well, perhaps I’m a truth seeker, too. What
is truth?”
                 “Pontius
Pilate asked that once, and didn't wait for Jesus to answer him,” said
Thunstone. “It’s a pity he didn't wait; Jesus was apt to give interesting
answers to questions. The nature of reality, you say. The demonstrated fact is,
when strange things are examined, the strangeness goes out of them. They become
workaday facts. The impossible is always happening.”
                 “I
like that,” said Ensley, wagging his head over it. “You're right, Mr.
Thunstone; you have a way of being right. For instance, an
impossibility like space travel has become a familiar thing, almost a
commonplace. The splitting of the atom—I suggest it's too bad that we made a
reality out of that. What else? What story that's called impossible today? The vampire? The werewolf? The dead rising to haunt us?”
                 Thunstone
did not remark that he had in his time encountered vampires, werewolves, and
ghosts of the dead, all three. “What you mean,” he did say, “is that rationalization
can take the super out of supernatural.”
                 “True
again,” applauded Ensley. “You've finished your drink; will you take another?
No? Then let's go into the dining room and see what Mrs. Sayle has for us.”
                The room behind had a long table of
dark, polished wood, set with lacy mats and silver and plates. A woman waited
there, pudgy and round-faced, with red-dyed hair. She wore an apron worked in
blue yam with stars. As Ensley came in, she looked at him almost
apprehensively. Plainly she feared him.
                 “This
is Mr. Thunstone, Mrs. Sayle, and I hope you've done us justice today,"
Ensley said loftily.
                 “Ow,"
she said, “quite simple, I fear, but I hope good . I'll
just fetch it in."
                 And
she bustled out.
                 Ensley
sat at the head of the table, and Thunstone at a place beside him. There were
glasses of cold white wine. Mrs. Sayle scurried in again with something in an
oval china tureen, and held it for them to help themselves. It turned out to be
a creamy Newburg of shrimp, and with it she served them small potatoes and
greens cooked with tiny slivers of ham. There was also a salad of lettuce,
sauced with something mustardy. Then she brought a straw tray with slices of
crusty bread. Nothing simple about this lunch, thought Thunstone as he ate with
a good appetite. He wondered why Mrs. Sayle sounded nervous.
                 “Those
greens are picked here and there on my property," Ensley told Thunstone.
“Wild greens. Hob gathers them; he knows which are good."
                 “Delicious,"
said Thunstone, eating a forkful.
                 “I
take leave to observe how impressed you are with evidences of antiquity in and
around Claines," said Ensley, refilling Thunstone’s wineglass from a
carafe.
                 “Naturally
I am," agreed Thunstone. “In America, we date antiquities back no further
than, say, Jamestown