The Killers - Hemingway

 

Sunday, February 9, 2020

SUNDAY REVIEW / HEMINGWAY SHORT STORY / THE KILLERS

Originally published in Scribners Magazine, 1927. 
Illustration by Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge

By Ernest Hemingway

The door of Henry's lunchroom opened and two men came in. They sat down at the counter.

         "What's yours?" George asked them.

         "I don't know," one of the men said. "What do you want to eat, Al?"

         "I don't know," said Al. "I don't know what I want to eat."

         Outside it was getting dark. The street-light came on outside the window. The two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end of the counter Nick Adams watched them. He had been talking to George when they came in.

         "I'll have a roast pork tenderloin with apple sauce and mashed potatoes," the first man said.

         "It isn't ready yet."

         "What the hell do you put it on the card for?"

         "That's the dinner," George explained. "You can get that at six o'clock."

         George looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter.

         "It's five o'clock."

         "The clock says twenty minutes past five," the second man said.

         "It's twenty minutes fast."

         "Oh, to hell with the clock," the first man said. "What have you got to eat?"