All Flesh is Grass

— Черт возьми, Хигги, мы только сорвали парочку, чтоб получше разглядеть,  — возразил Чарли Хаттон."

"“Well, quit it,” said the mayor sternly. “Every one that you pull off is fifty dollars less. Give them leaves a little time and they'll grow to proper size and then they'll drop off and all we need to do is to pick them up and every one of them will be money in our pocket.”

“How do you know that?” Grandma Jones shrilled at him.

— Так вот, хватит,  — сурово отрезал наш мэр.  — Каждый сорванный листок  — это пятьдесят долларов пропащих.

— А ты откуда знаешь?  — пронзительно крикнула мамаша Джоунс.

“Well,” the mayor said, “it stands to reason, don't it? Here we have these marvellous plants growing money for us. The least we can do is let them be, so they can grow it for us.”

He looked around the crowd and suddenly saw me.

“Brad,” he asked me, “isn't that correct?”

“I'm afraid it is,” I said.

— Да разве вам не ясно? Эти замечательные кусты отращивают для нас деньги. Надо только не мешать им  — пускай делают свое дело.

Он обвел взглядом толпу и вдруг заметил меня.

— Верно я говорю? Брэд?

— Боюсь, что так,  — сказал я.

For Tupper had stolen the money and the Flowers had used the bills as patterns on which to base the leaves. I would have bet, without looking further, that there were no more than thirty different serial numbers in the entire crop of money.

“What I want to know,” said Charley Hutton, “is how you figure we should divide it up—once it's ripe, that is.”

Потому что Таппер стащил у меня полторы тысячи, и Цветы взяли те тридцать билетов за образец для листьев. Я и не глядя могу побиться об заклад: на всех этих кустах, на всех листьях-банкнотах повторяются одни и те же тридцать порядковых номеров.

— Интересно знать,  — заговорил Чарли Хаттон,  — как мы их, по-вашему, станем делить? То есть, понятно, когда они дозреют.

“Why,” said the mayor, “that's something I hadn't even thought of. Maybe we could put it in a common fund that could be handed out to people as they have the need of it.”

“That don't seem fair to me,” said Charley. “That way some people would get more of it than others. Seems to me the only way is to divide it evenly. Everyone should get his fair share of it, to do with as he wants.”

— А я, признаться, об этом еще не подумал,  — отозвался мэр.