The Song of the Flea by Gerald Kersh Read Free Book Online

again and again. At last he balanced the suitcase on his shoulder, where it nuzzled its way in again and hurt abominably. Pym put it down, took in a reserve of breath, and transferred it to the other shoulder; but his face was dripping with sweat and his handkerchief was out of reach of his left hand—and already sodden, in any case.
    Nevertheless he reached Proust’s secondhand gentlemen’s wardrobe shop in High Street, St. Giles’, at a quarter to two in the afternoon, and walked in, stopping only to wipe his face on his sleeve and adjust his tie.
    Pym hoped for nothing, and had no fear. Three shillings and a thin sixpence tinkled in his fob-pocket. He threw down the suitcase—his last chip—and said, quite calmly:
    “Want to buy this stuff?”
    The man behind the counter shook out the overcoat and spread out the suit. If he says ‘Fivepence ’ , I’ll take fivepence, Pym said to himself. I shall have done all I could.
    “Did you want to sell the case, too?” the man asked.
    “Of course. The case, too.”
    Pym did not care. He opened his nostrils and sniffed the heavy odours of the secondhand clothes shop. There was a lingering smell of steam that had passed through tired trousers; a sour whiff of dry-cleaning; a tang of benzine, boot-polish, wax, perspiration, dead flowers, and tobacco.
    “Hm!” said the man behind the counter. “Well, well! If you like I can let you have forty-five shillings for the lot.”
    “Forty-five shillings?” said Pym, stupefied.
    “You see, the case isn’t much good to me. Well, look here, call it forty-seven-and-six.”
    Pym picked up the pound note, two ten-shilling notes, and three half-crowns. He felt weak and tearful, limp yet light, blissfully drowsy, like a woman after a sharp travail. He had fifty-one shillings. How wise he had been to ask for a loan of only twenty-five shillings on the typewriter; how prudent, how far-sighed! If he had been a fool who lived for the moment, like certain others he could name, he would have borrowed all he could get—three pounds, perhaps—and then where would he be? Now he could get back the machine, pay his rent, and had a bed to sleep in, a table to work on, a fine typewriter to work with, and something to eat. What more could a man desire? He had sold his last good suit and his overcoat, his only pair of decent shoes, and his presentable leather suitcase—a good twenty pounds’ worth—for forty-seven-and-six. What did that matter? ‘With my typewriter I can turn a sheet of toilet paper into a five-pound note,’ he said to himself. Hungry but exhilarated, curiously peaceful in spite of his sore feet and aching arms, he rode in a bus to Greenberg’s, near the Gray’s Inn Road, and got the typewriter. Pym could not wait until he was at home: he went to a café and, balancing the machine on his knees, took off the cover. It was good to look at—a big American portable with all the most recent devices, carefully tended, better than new. It had a tabular key, an asterisk, and plus and equal signs in case you wanted to type arithmetic. Pym could see his face in the gleaming black enamel. Looking lovingly into his own eyes he touched one of the keys. Instantly up leapt the letter ‘a’ and the platen received the imprint of it and then moved one space to the left. Here was perfection, absolute beauty, brightly bedecked with a red-and-black ribbon—efficiency wearing the colours of Anarchy.
    Pym marvelled at the kindly considerate competence of pawnbrokers who treated strangers’ goods with such loving care. Lend your typewriter to a friend and it comes back broken, orfull of fluff and candle-grease: lend it to a pawnbroker and he treats it as if it were his own.
    When Pym left the teashop he did not carry the typewriter by the handle: he held it warmly under his right arm.
    Busto came up from the basement as soon as Pym’s key rattled in the lock.
    “Well?”
    “Well what?”
    Busto touched the palm of his right hand with the