Read Online THE Nick Adams STORIES by Ernest Hemingway - Free Book Online

with his gloved hands.
    â€œSo long, bright boy,” he said to George. “You got a lot of luck.”
    â€œThat’s the truth,” Max said. “You ought to play the races, bright boy.”
    The two of them went out the door. George watched them, through the window, pass under the arc light and cross the street. In their tight overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team. George went back through the swinging door into the kitchen and untied Nick and the cook.
    â€œI don’t want any more of that,” said Sam, the cook. “I don’t want any more of that.”
    Nick stood up. He had never had a towel in his mouth before.
    â€œSay,” he said. “What the hell?” He was trying to swagger it off.
    â€œThey were going to kill Ole Andreson,” George said. “They were going to shoot him when he came in to eat.”
    â€œOle Andreson?”
    â€œSure.”
    The cook felt the corners of his mouth with his thumbs.
    â€œThey all gone?” he asked.
    â€œYeah,” said George. “They’re gone now.”
    â€œI don’t like it,” said the cook. “I don’t like any of it at all.”
    â€œListen,” George said to Nick. “You better go see Ole Andreson.”
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œYou better not have anything to do with it at all,” Sam, the cook, said. “You better stay way out of it.”
    â€œDon’t go if you don’t want to,” George said.
    â€œMixing up in this ain’t going to get you anywhere,” the cook said. “You stay out of it.”
    â€œI’ll go see him,” Nick said to George. “Where does he live?”
    The cook turned away.
    â€œLittle boys always know what they want to do,” he said.
    â€œHe lives up at Hirsch’s rooming house,” George said to Nick.
    â€œI’ll go up there.”
    Outside the arc light shone through the bare branches of a tree. Nick walked up the street beside the car tracks and turned at the next arc light down a side street. Three houses up the street was Hirsch’s rooming house. Nick walked up the two steps and pushed the bell. A woman came to the door.
    â€œIs Ole Andreson here?”
    â€œDo you want to see him?”
    â€œYes, if he’s in.”
    Nick followed the woman up a flight of stairs and back to the end of a corridor. She knocked on the door.
    â€œWho is it?”
    â€œIt’s somebody to see you, Mr. Andreson,” the woman said.
    â€œIt’s Nick Adams.”
    â€œCome in.”
    Nick opened the door and went into the room. Ole Andreson was lying on the bed with all his clothes on. He had beena heavyweight prizefighter and he was too long for the bed. He lay with his head on two pillows. He did not look at Nick.
    â€œWhat was it?” he asked.
    â€œI was up at Henry’s,” Nick said, “and two fellows came in and tied up me and the cook, and they said they were going to kill you.”
    It sounded silly when he said it. Ole Andreson said nothing.
    â€œThey put us out in the kitchen,” Nick went on. “They were going to shoot you when you came in to supper.”
    Ole Andreson looked at the wall and did not say anything.
    â€œGeorge thought I better come and tell you about it.”
    â€œThere isn’t anything I can do about it,” Ole Andreson said.
    â€œI’ll tell you what they were like.”
    â€œI don’t want to know what they were like,” Ole Andreson said. He looked at the wall. “Thanks for coming to tell me about it.”
    â€œThat’s all right.”
    Nick looked at the big man lying on the bed.
    â€œDon’t you want me to go and see the police?”
    â€œNo,” Ole Andreson said. “That wouldn’t do any good.”
    â€œIsn’t there something I could do?”
    â€œNo. There ain’t anything to do.”
    â€œMaybe it was just a bluff.”
    â€œNo. It