10
Saturday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
OF MILE AND MEN
THE TELEGRAPH PRINTS AS A SERIAL THE GREATEST SHORT NOVEL OF OUR TIME, THE STORY OF TWO MEN WHO WANTED ONLY A PLACE OF THEIR OWN, AND FOUND ONLY
TRAGEDY AND SACRIFICE.
July
20, 1940
HR
ere's
THE
George!"
BY JOHN STEINBEER
But with us it ain't, youth rode up and dismoupled out- like that. We got side the bunkhouse door. He poked a future. We got his head in and addressed Lennie, somebody to talk
"You the new guys my ole man
to that gives awan lookin' for?".
damn about us. If them other
guys
gets in jail, they
can
tot
for all any- body cares"
"Yeah, we just come," replied George.
་
"Let the big guy talk!"
"Suppose he don't want to talk?” sald
George with asperity. "Him
"But not. us" and me travel together, and I do the
Lennie burst
talkin'." In
excitedly. "And Curley swaggered up close to
why Because I got you to look
Lennle turned his head away and after you—and Qiat's why!'Go on, began to whimper. George, contrite, put a hand on his shoulder.
George. "You hand?"
drawin' cords this
"I might," said George quietly. "Well, I'll see you get a chance to ante." He leaped into his saddle and galloped away.
"Some day." George pursued, "we're gonna have a little house, and
This, Candy explained to them, a couple of acres and a cow and some was the boss's son-one of those pigs and-"
tough ittle guys who hated big guys. And have rabblis!" Lennle shout-In fact, he hated practically every
The y quiet of the rambling orchard drowsing under the Call forin sh, was broken by a sudden pounding of hurried footsteps. A "Aw, Lennie, I didn't take it away rabbit fore for the bushes, birds from you just to be meun. You get streaked to the treetops, as the won Ilve bird and I'll let you keep it men rushed past dodging between a little while." the tree the small, tough, wiry one
ed. "I don't know where there is no in front and the huge, hulking one) live bird," Lennie sobbed. " re- plunging along after him.
member my aunt used to give 'em to
Breathing in quick le rasps, me, and I'd pet 'em awhile, and then they made the edge of the orchard, they was dead. I never meant to kill slid into the irrigation ditch, crouch-an, George-but they was so little?"
ed against the bank until the water
•
•
body; and since he was a professional prizefighter, he was usually on the "Yeah, we'll have a big vege-lookout for some one to pick on. table patch and a rabbit hutch
"Seems to me he's worse lately," And when it
added Candy, and chickens. rains in the winter we'll just say over in the boss's house. And Cur- "He got married a couple of months aga Wife lives 'skip the work.' We'll build up ley's worse ever since he got married.
Like he's settin' on a ant hill."
around it and listen to the rain comin' down on the roof."
was up to their very noses, and pull- While they heated their sup-a fire in the stove, and set ed the overhanging brush over the tops of their heads. In a moment per of canned beans over a came the posse racing dong after brushwood fire, Lennie annoyed them, the armed men leaping over his companion with his repented the ditch and running ahead into the demand for ketchup to go with
his beans.
wood.
He broke off abruptly. "Lennie, you remember where we're goin' to- Inorrow?"
The fugitives awaited a long tine,; "I told you we ain't got any!" ex- unmoving in the muddy water. Then ploded George. "Whatever we ain't George, the small one, whispered a word in Lennie. They scrambled got, that's what you want, I should and tried, but I couldn't remember
Lennie scowled, and slowly shook his head, I forgot, George. 1 tried "All right, I'll tell you again.
up the bank, their shabby blue denim / aropped you when I had the chimice. That's all I got to do-lell you things |
said George.
*
I was alone, I could dive so easy,
into
"Maybe he's showin' off for his wife," George suggested.
"You jest wait till you see Curley's wile!"
*
She was pretty in a vacant- eyed, childish sort of way, with full, rouged lips and big wide- paced eyes heavily made up.
Her voice had a nasal, querulous timbre, almost like a whine. wore a little cotton house dress, June and square-cut in the neck, and red mules festooned with bouquets of red ostrich feathers. She was Curley's) wife of two months, the only woman
.She
clothes dripping. "Coire on,"
i could go get a job and works and no you forgot. We're goin' to Number trouble, and when the end of the 3 ranch, where we got jobs from the Now what are you The twilight was deepening which month coine, I could take my fifty agency, see?
asks you and go they trudged tiredly into the title bucke
gonna say when the boss. town and get clearing, well known to hindle-stiffy whitever I want. I could order any-questions!
I could think of-get a gullon Lennie thought deeply. "I ain't as a camping ground, beside the sandy bank of the Salinos River a of whiskey or sit in a puel room and gonna say a word,"
play cards or thout pool
And "Good" boy! That's Ano, Say. few miles south of Soledad. Lennie what have I get? I got you! You, maybe you're gettin' better. Now He's Got Another unsiung his rolled-up blanket, flung himself prone on
the bank, sub-can't keep a job and you lose te look, Lennie. I want you to look merged his entire head, and drank in every job I gel-just keep me shovin' around here. Think you cun remein-
ber this place?" great noisy gulpa, snorting into the all over the country all the time,"
water like a horse.
"Lennie! Don't drink Go much watert Leanle, you hear me? You gonna be sick!"
George shook the huge shoulder until Lennie came up.
..
*
SONIC,
"That's good. You drink George. Take a good big drink,"
George nervously sniffed the scummy water, drank a little,
Lennie looked around carefully. Lennie, wounded, offered to "Sure. I can remembed. Didn't I away and leave George. He would remember 'bout not goin' to say to up into the hills and find a cave to word?" sleep in, and lle in the sun all day, and no one would take away the dead birds and mier that he loved to pet. He would do that if George didn't want him.
''Course you did. Well, look, Lennie, if you just happen to get in trouble like you always done before,
want you to come right here and hide in the brush till I come for you. Can you remember that?"
"Sure I can, George. Hide in the brush. Hide in the brush until you I'll remember, George. But I won't get In no trouble. I ain't gonna say a word."
"41 been mean nin't I?" said George softly, "Sure, Leunte, 1 want you to stay with me. Some body'd shoot you for and splashed handfuls over his lived up in the hills by your
a coyote, i! come. face and head. Then they sat self. Besides, you ain't got sense down in the clearing, hands enough to find food to keep you clapsed around their drawn-up Lele-list clince I get I'll and alive. I'm sorry about the birds, knees.
"Lennie! What'd you just take you a pup. You could pet it harder, calves to the hard-eyed ranch boss,
and maybe you wouldn't lei?? it."
Lennie, mollified,
out of that pocket?"
Lennie's dumb, childlike face grew
•
A
selves at Ranch No. 3 early the next George and Lennic presented them-
ordeal of giving an account of them- afternoon, and safely weathered the
Mr. Jackson-though not without arousing his suspiciona when George ate his refused to let Lennie do any of the
wise
crafty. "Ain't a thing in my pocket, beans in silence. Then his face talking George."
know, You-jot-it in your-hawi.lit-up with-a-happy-thought. Don't try to put anything-over Come on, give it here. Give it here, He begged George to tell him growled Jackson. "I've seen I say!"
guys before." once again "like you told Lennie reluctantly extended his before how it's gonna be." great fat. "Aw, it's only a bird. didn't kill it. Honest. I found dead."
mouse!"
I
me
•
King Victor Emmanuel
has confer-
red the
S up reme Order of the Annun- alation. Italy's high est decora tion, on Field Mar- shal Geor ing to mark
the first
anniversary of the signing of the Italo-German alliance. The order makes. Georing à "cousin" of the King.
The same order was con- ferred
Cu Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, when the pact was signed last
year.
on the ranch, and "Curley's constant) presumption was that Mae was guilty until proved Innocent. In fact, he spent more time looking after and spying on her than he devoted to his
helping his father.
Candy, the lame and grizzled it: George wearily, but with good old man-of-all-work who had job of
do you want of a dead bird,
Last week it WUS
་་་ was pettin' it will my thumb while we walked along."
George heaved the little form into the river. you ain't pettin' no bird while yer walkin' witli me.”
mature, launched Into
1 recital of
And it
their common dream, uttering the been a barley bucker on the was worth a vicious beating for any words softly, rhythmically, like ranch until a threshing machine of the ranch bands to be found alone destroyed one of his hands, showed them to the bunkhouse,
fi
famlitar song.
work on
"Guys like us that ranches is the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family, they don't belong no place. They ain't
gut nothin' to look ahead
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While George was eyeing with disgust the ean of inscet powder: which his predecessor had left on his bunk, a small, dark, hatchet-faced
A nine-storeyed building, ideally situated at BUBBLING WELL ROAD, (overlooking the Race Course)
Single, double or suite of rooms of an International charactor, Latest, conveniences, Spacious and palatial dining halls for Europaan and Chinoso diners. Excellent servica and cuisine. Torms modarato,
One
with Mue, however innocently en
ged-untess the said ranch hand happened to be too strong or too influential for Curley to care attack, When he found her in the barn fondling a little pup-ons of a litter: lately whelped by Slim's collie- Curley ordered her to give it back Lo Slim at ance.
"No
guy's givin' my wife presents. You're givin' that pup back."
"Oh, yeah?" She cuddled it de- fluntly.
"If you're not givin' it back, Slim's goin' to take it back.".
"No he won't.
you."
Slim ain't afraid of.
"No? We'll see whether he is or not! Walt' he tastes the old one- twol".
Curley galloped off to the barley field, found Siim on top of his wagon, and imperiously summoned him to dismount.
"Your
accomplish-
ment almost warrants
promotion to a Key
Past — BUT you've
pinched our mug!"
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Slim, tall, slow-moving, jud. This will interest YOU!
cious, was a jerkline skinner-
the prince of the ranch, capable |of driving as many as twenty mules with a single line to the leaders.
His hands, large and lear, were as: delicate. In their action as those of a temple dancer. Slim's leatherly face was ageless he might be 36, he might be 50. His nuthority was so great that his word was taken on any subject, from politics to love,
Slim gave Curley | little-
comfort when the hot-hended bäntarfi
warned him to "lay off my wife and com- manded him to take bacle the pup. Silm climbed back in his driver's soat and contemptuously flicked fly
off the rumo of Curley's horse with; his whip, Curley, seething, decided to vent his rage on the group of barley buckers who were looking on, and George among them. He
Control of his wildly rearing' mount and spurred him directly into group making them daalt madly out of his path.pk peng
1. Lenned
the
"He was aimint at' Lennie,” said Candy when horse and rider had sped [out of sight. It's like I told you He hates "big guys”
(To be continued)
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