《Half Pair》作者： - A. Bertram Chandler 【EPUB】

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The Half Pair BERTRAM CHANDLERNOTHING he said is more infuriating than a half pair of anything. Ive said that Im sorry she replied in a tone of voice that implied that she wasnt. Butyoure making such a fuss about it. Who gave them to you Some blonde I gave them to myself he replied sulkily. It so happened that the need for a decent pair ofcuff links coincided with my having enough money to buy them. Ive had them for years ... And you were very attached to them she said. Dont cry. Mummy will buy you a new pair whenwe get back to civilization. I want a pair now he said sulkily. But why she asked genuinely puzzled. Were alone together in this tub of ours half-waybetween the Asteroid Belt and Mars and you have this insane desire for a pair of cuff links... We agreed he said stiffly that we werent going to let ourselves lapse get sloppy theway that some prospecting couples do. You must remember those dreadful people we met on Px173A– the ones who asked us to dinner aboard their ship. He dressed in greasy overalls she inwhat looked like a converted flour sack. The drinks straight from the bottle and the foodstraight from the can ... That she told him was an extreme case. Admittedly. And my going around with my shirt sleeves rolled up or flapping would be thethin end of the wedge. He brooded. What I cant get over is the clottishness of it all. I gothrough into the bathroom to rinse out my shirt. I leave the cuff links on the ledge over thebasin while I put the shirt on the stretcher to dry. Picking up the cuff links to transferthem to a clean shirt I drop one into the basin. It goes down the drain. I hurry to theengine-room to get a spanner to open the pipe at the U-bend. I return to find you filling thebasin to wash your smalls. I tell you whats happened – and you promptly pull out the plugwashing the link over and past the bend … I wanted to see she said. You wanted to see he mimicked. He brooded some more. It wouldnt be so bad if this were oneof the old-fashioned ships working on an absolutely closed cycle. All that Id have to do wouldbe to take the plumbing adrift foot by foot until I found my cuff link.