（外文电子版资料）A. Bertram Chandler - Bad Patch.pdf

BAD PATCH BY A. BERTRAM CHANDLER A soft world of clouds and drizzles and weathered hills doesnt build a hard people. And a soft people—well, they may have quite different, quite potent, means to their ends! Illustrated by Swenson For the seventh time George Whitley inserted fresh sheets of paper into his typewriter. For the seventh time he typed the date in the upper left-hand corner. The thumb of his right hand rattled the shift bar. Then, hard by the margin, appeared the numeral one. One space down—and the words PLEASURE DOME, in capitals, sprang into being in the top middle of the page. Two spaces—and by was added. Two more spaces —and GEORGE WHITLEY. And that, for a long time, was that. George Whitley filled his pipe. He lit it. He looked vainly at the many and various pin-up girls on the bulkheads of his cabin for inspiration. He got up from his chair and went to the locker in which he kept his mental lubricants. A glass of pink gin in his hand he returned to his chair. Ensued an interval devoted to the consumption of gin and relighting of pipes. This was followed by a brief burst of activity, a. sound as of a machine-gun post striving to fight off an attack in overwhelming force. After a brief but spirited resistance the post was overwhelmed and the gunners bayoneted. Whitley read, for the seventh time, the first page of PLEASURE DOME, tore it from his machine and sent it to join its crumpled predecessors in the wastepaper basket. He lit his pipe again and went out on deck. He looked disapprovingly at the small men-o-war berthed all around his own ship, looked almost longingly towards the glare of lights in the eastern sky that was Honolulu. He wished that it was not his night aboard, that he was with his fellow officers sampling the dubious delights of th