新编英语教程3 李观仪 全部课文

My First Job

While I was waiting to enter university, I saw in a local newspaper a teaching post advertised at a school in a suburb of London about ten miles from where I lived. Being very short of money and wanting to do something useful, I applied, fearing as I did so, that without a degree and with no experience of teaching my chances of landing the job were slim.

However, three days later a letter arrived, summoning me to Croydon for an interview. It proved an awkward journey: a train to Croydon station; a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least a quarter of a mile. As a result I arrived on a hot June morning too depressed to feel nervous.

The school was a dreary, gabled Victorian house of red brick and with big staring sash-windows. The front garden was a gravel square; four evergreen shrubs stood at each corner, where they struggled to survive the dust and fumes from a busy main road.

It was clearly the headmaster himself that opened the door. He was short and rotund. He had a sandy-colored moustache, a freckled forehead and hardly any hair. He was wearing a tweed suit —one felt somehow he had always worn it —and across his ample stomach was looped a silver watch-chain.

He looked at me with an air of surprised disapproval, as a colonel might look at a private whose bootlaces were undone. "Ah yes," he grunted. "You'd better come inside." The narrow, sunless hall smelled unpleasantly of stale cabbage; the cream-printed walls had gone a dingy margarine color, except where they were scarred with ink marks; it was all silent. His study, judging by the crumbs on the carpet, was also his dining room. On the mantelpiece there was a salt cellar and pepper-pot. "You'd better sit down," he said, and proceeded to ask me a number of questions: what subjects had I taken in my General School Certificate; how old was I; what games did I play; then fixing me suddenly with his bloodshot eyes, he asked me whether I thought games were a vital part of a boy's education. I mumbled something about not attaching too much importance to them. He grunted. I had said the wrong thing. The headmaster and I obviously had singularly little in common.

The school, he said, consisted of one class of twenty-four boys, ranging in age from seven to thirteen. I should have to teach all subjects except art, which he taught himself. Football and cricket were played in the Park, a mile away on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.

The teaching set-up appalled me. I should have to split the class up into three groups and teach them in turn at three different levels; and I was dismayed at the thought of teaching algebra and geometry — two subjects at which I had been completely incompetent at school. Worse perhaps was the idea of Saturday afternoon cricket. It was not so much having to tramp a mile along the dusty streets of Croydon, followed by a crocodile of small boys that I minded, but the fact that most of my friends would be enjoying leisure at that time.

I said diffidently, "What would my salary be?" "Twelve pounds a week plus lunch." Before I could protest he got to his feel. "Now," he said, "you'd better meet my wife. She's the one who really runs this school."

This was the last straw. I was very young: the prospect of working under a woman constituted the ultimate indignity. The Interview

The man who looked like a terrier said: "You're Blakey, are you? Take a seat."

Blakey took a seat.

"I see you took your 'A' levels in English, French and History, and continued with the Arts at university." The terrier man looked up from Blakey's application form. "What," he asked mildly, "has prompted you to want to change to medicine?"

"Well," Blakey said — feeling anything but well — "I've always, even at school, been interested, but it was a big decision to take, and I wasn't sure at the time I had the right temperament." The panel of three made no comment, and their silence reminded him he'd not yet answered their question. "I really wanted to write."

The man next to the terrier cleared his throat. "So the fact is you'd rather be a writer than a doctor?"

"Not necessarily," Blakey said. "It might have been true once, but for some time now my mind's been set on becoming a doctor."

"But you are capable of a change of heart." There was a long pause.

"I'm sorry," Blakey said, startled, "did you mean that as a question?"

"Well?" the man said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I don't think I am at all."

"And you left University without taking a degree. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Why was this?"

"Looking back," Blakey said, "I reckon I took on too much, too many activities."

"Could you explain to us what these activities were?"

"I produced several plays for the college dramatic society," (which was true) "I spoke at Union debates" (also true) "and did a bit of social work" (which wasn't).

The third member of the panel frowned. "Social work?" he said, as if it were some incurable disease. "Tell us about that." For a thickset heavy-jowled man, his voice was oddly querulous.

"Yes," Blakey said, and described the only two student organizations of the sort he knew the names of, but which for one reason or another he'd never got round to joining. "And if your application were successful," the terrier man said on a note of somber improbability, "could you support yourself?" Blakey hesitated. He had a sudden premonition that his answer could be crucial.

"You have no grant?" the man prompted.

"No."

"Have you any private means?"

"I think I could manage all right."

For the first time his principal tormentor revealed his teeth in a tight, impatient smile. "How could you manage?" Blakey shifted in his chair. He had begun to resent these cold, unforthcoming men who instilled in him a sense of guilt. It was more a cross-examination than an interview. His desire to take up medicine seemed almost like a crime. "I had a part-time job during vacations, which enabled me to save —"

"Could you tell us," his persecutor persisted, "the weekly income."

He told them.

"Are you thinking of getting married in the near future?" "No."

"What are your interests? How do you spend your spare time?"

What had he said on the form? Why did they ask him when it was all on the form? He told them he liked music, the theatre, and that he often went walking. "Once," he said, "I even took part in a fishing match."

The panel appeared not to regard this with much enthusiasm. "What games do you play?" The heavy-jowled man leaned forward hopefully. "Do you play rugger? "No, I was at a soccer school."

"Did you ever win any prizes at anything?"

"No."

"Have any members of your family been in the medical profession?"

Blakey shook his head. "Most of my relations," he said, stung by a sense of inadequacy, "work in the pits." "Hm," The terrier man scribbled something on the form. "

I think that covers pretty well everything," he said. He gave Blakey a wintry smile. "In due course you will hear from us."

It sounded to Blakey like a threat.

Unwillingly on Holiday

Not all holidays are seen as pleasurable occasions. Sometimes going on holiday can be something to be dreaded. Partly it could be the change from the known routine, going somewhere where you are uncertain of what is expected or what you will find. Some people find this an exciting new experience; others face it with dread. Read the following account. What would your feelings be about going somewhere new on holiday?

If, standing alone on the back doorstep, Tom allowed himself to weep tears, they were tears of anger. He looked his good-bye at the garden, and raged that he had to leave it — leave it and Peter. They had planned to spend their time here so joyously these holidays.

Town gardens are small, as a rule, and the Longs' garden was no exception to the rule; there was a vegetable plot and a grass plot and one flower-bed and a rough patch by the back fence. In this last the apple-tree grew: it was large, but bore very little fruit, and accordingly the two boys had always been allowed to climb freely over it. These holidays they would have built a tree-house among its branches. Tom gazed, and then turned back into the house. As he passed the foot of the stairs, he called up. "Good-bye, Peter!" There was a croaking answer.

He went out on to the front doorstep, where his mother was waiting with his suitcase. He put his hand out for it, but Mrs. Long clung to the case for a moment, claiming his attention first. "You know, Tom," she said, "it's not nice for you to be rushed away like this to avoid the measles, but it's not nice for us either. Your father and I will miss you, and so will Peter. Peter's not having a nice time, anyway, with measles."

"I didn't say you'd all be having a nice time without me," said Tom. "All I said was —"

"Hush!" whispered his mother, looking past him to the road and the car that waited there and the man at the driving-wheel. She gave Tom the case, and then bent over him, pushing his tie up to cover his collar-button and letting her lips come to within an inch of his ear. "Tom, dear Tom —" she murmured, trying to prepare him for the weeks ahead, "remember that you will be a visitor, and do try — oh, what can I say? — try to be good."

She kissed him, gave him a dismissive push towards the car and then followed him to it. As Tom got in, Mrs. Long looked past him to the driver. "Give my love to Gwen," she said, "and tell her, Alan, how grateful we are to you both for taking Tom off at such short notice. It's very kind of you, isn't it, Tom?"

"Very kind," Tom repeated bitterly.

"There's so little room in the house," said Mrs. Long, "when there's illness."

"We're glad to help out," Alan said. He started the engine. Tom wound down the window next to his mother. "Good-bye then!"

"Oh, Tom!" Her lips trembled. "I am sorry — spoiling the beginning of your summer holidays like this!"

The car was moving; he had to shout back: "I'd rather have had measles with Peter — much rather!"

Tom waved good-bye angrily to his mother, and then, careless even of the cost to others waved to an inflamed face pressed against a bedroom window. Mrs. Long looked upwards to see what was there, raised her hands in a gesture of despair — Peter was supposed to keep strictly to his bed — and hurried indoors.

Tom closed the car window and sat back in his seat, in hostile silence. His uncle cleared his throat and said: "Well, I hope we get on reasonably well."

This was not a question, so Tom did not answer it.

He knew he was being rude, but he made excuses for himself; he did not much like Uncle Alan, and he did not want to like him at all. Indeed, he would have preferred him to be a brutal uncle. "If only he'd beat me," thought Tom, "then I could run away home, and Mother and Father would say I did right, in spite of the quarantine for measles. But he'll never even try to beat me, I know; and Aunt Gwen — she's worse because she's a child-lover, and she's kind. Cooped up for weeks with Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen in a poky flat..." He had never visited them before, but he knew that they lived in a flat, with no garden.

April Fools' Day

The first day of April ranks among the most joyous days in the juvenile calendar.

"It is a day when you hoax friends of yours with jokes like sending them to the shop for some pigeon's milk, or telling them to dig a hole because the dog has died; when they come back and ask where is the dead dog you say 'April fool' and laugh at them. There are some when you just say 'Your shoe lace is undone' or 'Your belt is hanging' or 'Go and fetch that plate off the table', and of course their shoe lace is tied up right, and their belt is not hanging, and there is no plate on the table, so you say 'Ever been had, April fool'."

Boy, 14, Knighton.

"On April the first we try to trick people by saying things such as there is a ghost behind you or there's a spider up your sleeve and so on. We also say things to frighten people by saying the bed has give way, or the picture has fallen down and so on. If the people look you call them an April fool, if they do not look they sometimes call you an April fool."

Girl, 9, Birmingham.

"On April Fools' day nearly all the time people fooled us. Last April I said to my brother 'And so everyone must keep in till next January 28th.' Then Brian said 'Why Dave, because there's a disease going on?' and I said to him 'No, because it's April Fool to you.' Then Dicky Riley said that he was looking for us to have our dinner. So off we set towards home and when we got there I told my mom what Dick had said, and mom said she had only just put the chips on. Suddenly Sailor our dog gave a low growl that was the sign that someone was at the door. I went to the door and who do you think was there, it was Dickly Riley coming to say April Fool."

Boy, 9, Birmingham.

Needless to say the people they most want to fool are the people who have just fooled them. "Arriving at school," writes a 12-year-old Longton girl:

"Elizabeth Arnold caught me with one of her witty jokes. 'Ah, ah,' I said. 'You wait until I can think of one.' At play time a grand idea had struck me. I went up to Liz and said, 'Elizabeth, Miss Buxton wants you.' 'Alright,' she said and ran into school. She walked all the way round the school and finally found Miss Buxton. Miss Buxton told her she did not want her. Liz was awfully sneapt (put out). She came back to me, and so I said 'April Fool'."

Teachers come in for their share of the fooling, and, according to a 12-year-old girl from Usk, Monmouth shire, are the most exciting prey:

"The best joke I ever saw was in school when one of our girls brought another girl dressed as our new needlework mistress into the form room. She was introduced to mistress who was taking us, and she was completely taken in. She even told us to stop laughing at the new mistress. Then we shouted 'April Fool' to her and we all had a good laugh."

And parents, of course, are not exempt. "We have a lovely time," says an 11-year-old Swansea girl, "as there are so many jokes to play such as sewing up the bottom of Daddy's trousers." And a 9-year-old Birmingham boy writes:

"Last year I fooled father by gluing a penny to the floor and saying 'Dad, you've dropped a penny on the floor.' He couldn't get it off the ground because it was stuck firm, then I shouted 'Yah, April Fool'."

Unit 4

A Man from Stratford — William Shakespeare

On March 25th, 1616, fifty-two-year-old Master William Shakespeare signed his will leaving the famous legacy of his "second best bed and furniture" to his wife and the greater part of his estate to his married daughter, Susanna Hall. It was the will of a comfortably off man, for the income from the estate probably amounted to about $200 a year, which was a lot of money over three hundred and sixty years ago. For historians, the most interesting part of the will was that signature, because it and other signatures are all we have left of the handwriting of the world's literary genius. There is no country where Shakespeare's work is not read with something very like awe because there is something fascinating about a man whose work was so much better than that of anyone else. Yet in spite of the thousands of books that have been written about this amazing writer, almost every detail of his personal life is supposition rather than fact. Historically speaking, Shakespeare lived only yesterday but his activities, like those of nearly every playwright of his day, are so vague that he could have been born in Roman times. Shakespeare's birthplace, the little town of Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire, had made a thriving business out of its most famous citizen for a long time. It is a popular place for tourists from all over the world, even though many of them would have the greatest of difficulty in understanding Shakespeare's Elizabethan English. However, he has such a fine reputation that it is well worth the journey just to be able to look at the swans that swim on his river, and gaze at the cottage where Anne, his wife, lived before their marriage, and then to see his plays at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

To plot Shakespeare's life is to become involved in a kind of detective story where there are plenty of clues but very little else. Nobody even knows the exact date of his birth, although the register of the Parish Church confirms that William Shakespeare was baptized there on April 26th, 1564. Nor can it be proved that he went to the excellent local grammar school, although he probably did as there was nowhere else for him to go. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years older than himself, and they had three children. Then in 1585 this young married man apparently left Stratford and his family, for there is absolutely no record of him for seven long years.

Exactly what happened to William Shakespeare during those seven years has puzzled scholars ever since. There are different theories, but of all the probabilities the most likely one is that he travelled abroad, spending a good deal of time at sea. Shakespeare wrote with great conviction about storms and shipwrecks and eating the hard ship's biscuits "with aching teeth".

What is quite certain is that, during the time Shakespeare lived there, Stratford-upon-Avon was visited by a great number of theatrical companies. It can never be proved, but it seems quite possible that the young Shakespeare saw some of these performances, realized in a flash that this was the life for him and talked one of the managers into giving him a job. At least nobody questions the fact that he can next be traced in 1592 in London, earning his living as a dramatist and generally getting well known in the theatre. Whatever else had happened during the lost years, plays that followed, such as Richard III and The Taming of the Shrew, were proof that the greatest literary career of all time had begun. Shakespeare soon became sufficiently well known for managers and other influential people to refer to him in writing. We know that as well as working on old plays he rapidly made a name for himself as an author of entirely new ones and also performed as an actor at court. During his fifteen years as a working man of the theatre, Shakespeare wrote more than thirty plays as well as marvelous verse.

After his death on April 23rd, 1616, Shakespeare left behind a mass of questions that experts have been trying to answer ever since. What was the source of Shakespeare's amazingly detailed knowledge of so many different subjects? Who was the beautiful but apparently heartless "dark lady" who seemed to have first inspired him and then

caused him a lot of sadness? So far we do not know. There have even been foolish attempts to prove that William Shakespeare's plays were in fact written by someone else. When one remembers that he lived in an age when printing was still very expensive and that it was rare for anything written to be thrown away, it seems astonishing that nothing remains of the busy writer's own handwriting but the signature. Sooner or later someone may discover a bundle of letters that will answer the question that have puzzled so many people for so long.

From an article in the magazine Look and Learn

William Shakespeare

Most people have heard of Shakespeare and probably know something of the plays that he wrote. However, not everybody knows much about the life of this remarkable man, except perhaps that he was born in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon and that he married a woman called Anne Hathaway. We know nothing of his school life. We do not know, for example, how long it lasted, but we presume that he attended the local grammar school, where the principal subject taught was Latin.

Nothing certain is known of what he did between the time he left school and his departure for London. According to a local legend, he was beaten and even put in prison for stealing rabbits and deer from the estate of a neighboring landowner, Sir Thomas Lucy. It is said that because of this he was forced to run away from his native place. A different legend says that he was apprenticed to a Stratford butcher, but did not like the life and for this reason decided to leave Stratford.

Whatever caused him to leave the town of his birth, the world can be grateful that he did so. What is certain is that he set foot on the road to fame when he arrived in London. It is said that at first he was without money or friends there, but that he earned a little by taking care of the horses of the gentlemen who attended the plays at the theatre. In time, as he became a familiar figure to the actors in the theatre, they stopped and spoke to him. They found his conversation so brilliant that finally he was invited to join their company. Earlier than 1592 there is no mention of Shakespeare either as actor or as playwright, and the name of the theatre he worked in is not known. However, by this date he had become one of the three leading members of a company of actors called the Lord Chamberlain's Men. This company was under the protection of the Lord Chamberlain, a powerful nobleman and an official at the Queen's Court. The company travelled about the country, giving performances in different towns, and also performed plays at Court.

From what we know of his later life, it is clear that Shakespeare's connection with the theatre made him a wealthy man, since his plays attracted large audiences and he shared in the profits. Towards the end of the sixteenth century he bought a large property in Stratford. It is not certain when he went back there to live but it was probably around 1603. He is not recorded as having acted in any play after that date, though he continued writing. No less than eleven of his plays were produced during the next ten years. These include the great tragedies Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. His last work was The Tempest, but he may have shared in the writing of the historical play King Henry VIII.

Even after his retirement he frequently visited London. Since the road between Stratford and London passed through Oxford, he would rest there at the home of his friend John Davenant, who had a deep respect and affection for the playwright.

Shakespeare died in 1616. Some years earlier he chose a gravestone, under which he was to be buried. He had a curse engraved on this stone which threatened to bring misfortune on anyone who might remove his body from his grave.

It seems strange that he should have had this fear. He must have known how greatly he was respected, even in his lifetime, for the genius that he showed in his plays and poems. It seems impossible that his remains could have been disturbed after his death.

The Light at the End of the Chunnel

In a hotel lobby in Sandgate, England, not two miles from the soon-to-be-opened English Channel Tunnel, stiff upper lips trembled. For the first time since the last ice age, England was about to be linked to France.

"I'd rather England become the 51st state of the U. S. A. than get tied up to there," said a retired civil servant with a complexion the color of ruby port. He nodded toward the steel gray Channel out the window, his pale blue eyes filled with foreboding.

"Awful place," added his wife, lifting a teacup to her lips. "They drink all the time, and the food is terrible. When I go to the Continent, I take my own bottle of English sauce." "We don't care much for the French," her husband concluded. "But the French. ..." Here a pause, a shudder, as the gull-wing eyebrows shot upward. "The French don't care for anybody."

On the other side of the Channel, the entente was scarcely more cordiale. In Vieux Coquelles, a village a beet field away from the French terminal near Calais, Clotaire Fournier walked into his farmhouse.

"I went to England once," he said, sinking into a chair in the dining room. "Never again! All they eat is ketchup. " A tiny explosion of air from pursed lips, then the coup de grace. "You can't even get a decent glass of red wine!" Well, by grace of one of the engineering feats of the century, for richer or poorer, better or worse, England and France are getting hitched. On May 6, 1994, Queen Elizabeth of Britain and President Francois Mitterrand of France are scheduled to inaugurate the English Channel Tunnel ("Chunnel" for short), sweeping aside 200 years of failed cross-Channel-link schemes, 1,000 years of historical rift, and 8,000 years of geographic divide.

The 31-mile-long Chunnel is really three parallel tunnels: two for trains and a service tunnel. It snakes from Folkestone, England, to Coquelles, France, an average of 150 feet below the seabed. Drive onto a train at one end; stay in your car and drive off Le Shuttle at the other 35 minutes later. Later this year [i. e. , 1994] Eurostar passenger trains will provide through service: London to Paris in three hours; London to Brussels in three hours, ten minutes.

The Chunnel rewrites geography, at least in the English psyche. The moat has been breached. Britain no longer is an island.

It's June 28, 1991, and I'm packed into a construction workers' train along with several dozen other journalists.

We're headed out from the English side to the breakthrough ceremony for the south running tunnel —the last to be completed.

The Chunnel is a work in progress. The concrete walls await final installation of the power, water, and communication lines that will turn it into a transport system. White dust fills the air. The train screeches painfully. "Makes you appreciate British Rail," someone jokes.

Finally we reach the breakthrough site. The two machines that dug this tunnel started from opposite sides of the Channel and worked toward the middle. Now we're staring at the 30-foot-diameter face of the French tunnel boring machine (TBM), "Catherine."

In one of those vive la difference quirks that color the project, the French gave women's names to their machines. On the British side, it's by the numbers — like TBM No. 6. Another difference: French workers wear chic, well-cut, taupe jumpsuits with red and blue racing stripes down the sleeves. The British uniform is pure grunge: baggy, bright orange.

Looking up, I imagine 180 feet of Channel above my head — ferries, tankers, a Dover sole or two. ...

The grating of the TBM interrupts my reverie. Its cutterhead —a huge wheel with tungsten-tipped teeth —chews into the last trace of rock separating England from France.

Music blares, and lights glare. Several Frenchmen scramble through. Thunderous applause erupts as dozens more follow. Strangely moving, this connecting of countries. Champagne corks pop, and French workers hug British counterparts.

"I might have opposed it 30 years ago, but now it's my tunnel," an Englishman says.

French tunnelers are still climbing through. "So many," I say, turning to a French official.

"And there are 56 million more behind them," he replies. Apres le tunnel, le deluge? Eurotunnel hopes so. It predicts eight million passengers a year by 1996. The flow will be lopsided. Only 30 percent of the traffic will be headed to Britain. "The French don't take holidays in England," explains Jeanne Labrousse, a Eurotunnel executive.

Hmmmm. Why do the French visit Britain? For the food? The weather? Fashion?

Mme. Labrousse seemed thoughtful.

"Of course," she brightened, "we will work on selling the idea."

Travelling

"What a lot of travelling you have done in your day, Aunt Augusta."

"I haven't reached nightfall yet," she said. "If I had a companion I would be off tomorrow, but I can no longer lift a heavy suitcase, and there is a distressing lack of porters nowadays. As you noticed at Victoria1."

"We might one day," I said, "continue our seaside excursions. I remember many years ago visiting Weymouth. There was a very pleasant green statue of Geroge III on the front."

"I have booked two couchettes a week from today on the Orient Express."

I looked at her in amazement. "Where to?" I asked.

"Istanbul, of course."

"But it takes days..."

"Three nights to be exact."

"If you want to go to Istanbul surely it would be easier and less expensive to fly?"

"I only take a plane," my aunt said, "when there is no alternative means of travel."

"It's really quite safe."

"It is a matter of choice, not nerves," Aunt Augusta said. "I knew Wilbur Wright very well indeed at one time. He took me for several trips. I always felt quite secure in his contraptions. But I cannot bear being spoken to all the time by irrelevant loud-speakers. One is not badgered at a railway station. An airport always reminds me of a Butlin's Camp.

"If you are thinking of me as a companion..."

"Of course I am. Henry."

"I'm sorry, Aunt Augusta, but a bank manager's pension is not a generous one."

"I shall naturally pay all expenses. Give me another glass of wine, Henry. It's excellent."

"I'm not really accustomed to foreign travel. You'd find me..."

"You will take to it quickly enough in my company. The Pullings have all been great travelers. I think I must have caught the infection through your father."

"Surely not my father... He never travelled further than Central London."

"He travelled from one woman to another, Henry, all through his life. That comes to much the same thing." Atomic Cars

Every motorist dreams of a car of the future that does not have to be refueled every few hundred miles, a car that will cost little to run because there is no outlay on petrol.

"Of course," you hear it said by an optimistic motorist, "the answer is the atom. Harness atomic power in a car, and you'll have no more worries about petrol. The thing will run for years without a refill."

And, theoretically, he is right. The answer is the atom. If atomic power could be used in a car, one small piece of uranium would keep the engine running for twenty or more years. Of course, this would cut the cost of running a car by quite a few hundred pounds, depending upon how much you spend on petrol.

But is this science-fiction-like picture of the atom exploding peacefully beneath the bonnet of a car possible? In theory it is, since already the atom has been harnessed to drive submarines, and an atomic engine is already in existence. But, say the experts, there are many problems still to be conquered before such an engine can in fact be fixed into a car.

Now what exactly are these problems that stand between you and a car that you will never have to refuel? Frankly, most of them can be summed up in one word — radiation. An atomic reactor, the kind of engine that would produce energy by atom-splitting, throws off radiation, extremely dangerous radiation. These rays are just as dangerous as when they are released from an atomic bomb. This radiation penetrates anything except the thickest concrete and lead, with fatal results for anybody in its path. Thus, at the moment any car carrying an atomic engine would also have to carry many tons of lead in order to prevent the

radiation from escaping.

Since a car made up of tons of lead is rather impracticable, the only answer at the moment seems to be the discovery or invention of a metal that will be strong enough to hold in the rays, but at the same time light enough for a vehicle to carry with ease and economy. Most likely this metal would have to be synthetic, since no natural metal except lead has yet proved fit for the job. When this light metal is invented, the motoring world will be well on the way to an atomic car. However, even after the invention of a protective but light metal, two other problems still remain, those of economics and safety.

It is extremely doubtful whether at the beginning a really economic engine could be made, that is, one cheap enough to make it worth putting in a car. But it seems safe to say that eventually, as techniques and mass production come in atomic engines, the price will go down. This is basic economics, and manufacturers should eventually be able to produce something that will at least be cheaper than having to pay for petrol during the lifetime of the car.

But then this third problem still remains, that of safety. Suppose that there is a road accident involving one, or perhaps two, atomic cars, and that the atomic reactor or its protective covering were damaged. Any explosion would be equal to that of a very small atomic bomb. The effects of such an explosion would be felt for several miles around. As will be realized, this is perhaps the biggest problem of all to overcome. Is it possible to make an atomic engine that will be really safe in every circumstance?

From an article in Ford Times

Energy or Extinction?

Energy or Extinction is the title of Professor Sir Fred Hoyle's latest book. I've met Fred Hoyle and I know he means what he says —and what he says in this book is riveting. Generally I am unimpressed by Doom-Sayers. Their arguments tend to be sloppy, their facts chosen to alarm and not to inform Fred Hoyle is in a different league. He is a scientist who lays out the components of his case so clearly that even someone like myself, who abandoned physics in a panic at 14, can just about grasp his meaning. More importantly, Fred Hoyle is full of common sense. When you are reading something as urgent and important as Energy or Extinction it is no small thing to be reassured that the author is a Yorkshireman and a man who, you feel, from the prose and from the honesty of his attitudes, you would trust on this and many other matters.

I went to see him at his home in Cumbria. Ironically he lives just a few miles from the nuclear power complex at Windscale which large bodies of opinion would like to close down, although he regards nuclear power as the only hope for a peaceful and technologically civilized future.

"I think the way we're heading is towards a world where people are going to go cold and hungry," he said, "and where increasingly large populations are going to start fighting for the diminishing resources. If people are going that way out of ignorance, because they are badly informed, then I think it my duty to set the facts before them."

He ran through the facts briskly. At the present rate of usage, oil will last for no more than 40 years, while coal could last 300 years. But if the underdeveloped nations begin to claim the standard of living we ourselves enjoy, then the lifespan of oil and coal will shorten dramatically. In either case, we are quite definitely running out, and to maintain the civilization and services we have built up demands new energy resources urgently and on a massive scale. The only hope, as Hoyle sees it, lies in nuclear energy.

Why then, I asked, was there so much opposition to the development of nuclear reactors? "The great majority of people are well meaning, but what they are really doing is to displace a fear of nuclear war into a fear of nuclear energy. What they do not seem to realize is that they are bringing the thing they fear closer. Because if the coal and the oil supplies run down, the world's most powerful nations will start scrapping for what remains. These are the countries with the big nuclear arsenals, and nuclear war is not at all improbable once these countries get desperate. The one thing that will prevent this is plenty of energy."

He poured scorn on the idea that leaks from places such as Windscale could spread radioactivity among the population. "If these people campaigning at Windscale were serious, they would be pressing for the evacuation of the county of Cornwall, because people there live on rocks that give off a natural radioactivity."

"Everything is radioactive. These walls are radioactive, the floor is radioactive, and Cornwall has more of this than other parts of the country. They would also be pressing for the medical profession being refused permission to use X-rays. The risks I've taken in the five years I've lived in Cumbria, due to the presence of Windscale, are less than the risk I take in one journey from here to Keswick in my car."

On Not Answering the Telephone

If, at the end of a conversation somebody says to me, "As soon as I know, I'll ring you up", he is taking too much for granted. He is proposing to attempt the impossible. So I have to say, "I'm afraid you can't. You see, I'm not on the telephone. I just haven't got a telephone."

Why don't I have a telephone? Not because I pretend to be wise or pose as unusual. There are two chief reasons: because I don't really like the telephone and because I find I can still work and play, eat, breathe and sleep without it. Why don't I like the telephone? Because I think it is a pest and a time-waster. It may create unnecessary suspense and anxiety, as when you wait for an expected call that doesn't come; or irritating delay, as when you keep ringing a number that is always engaged. As for speaking in a public telephone box, that seems to me really horrible. You would not use it unless you were in a hurry, and because you are in a hurry you will find other people waiting before you. When you do get into the box, you are half asphyxiated by stale, unventilated air, flavoured with cheap face-powder and chain-smoking; and by the time you have begun your conversation your back is chilled by the cold looks of somebody who is fidgeting to take your place.

If you have a telephone in your own house, you will admit that it tends to ring when you least want it to ring; when you are asleep, or in the middle of a meal or a conversation, or when you are just going out, or when you are in your bath. Are you strong-minded enough to ignore it, to say to yourself, "Ah, well, it will all be the same in a hundred years' time"? You are not. You think there may be some important news or message for you. Have you never rushed dripping from the bath, or chewing from the table, or dazed

from the bed, only to be told that you are a wrong number? Suppose you ignore the telephone when it rings, and suppose that, for once, somebody has an important message for you. I can assure you that if a message is really important it will reach you sooner or later. Think of the proverb: "Ill news travels apace." I must say good news seems to travel just as fast. And think of the saying: "The truth will out." It will.

Perhaps, when you take off the receiver, you give your number or your name. But you don't even know whom you are giving it to! Perhaps you have been indiscreet enough to have your name and number printed in the telephone directory, a book with a large circulation, a successful book so often reprinted as to make any author envious, a book more in evidence than Shakespeare or the Bible, and found in all sorts of private and public places. It serves you right if you find it impossible to escape from some idle or inquisitive chatterbox, or from somebody who wants something for nothing, or from some reporter bent on questioning you about your own affairs or about the private life of some friend who has just eloped or met with a fatal accident.

But, you will say, you need not have your name printed in the telephone directory, and you can have a telephone which is only usable for outgoing calls. Besides, you will say, isn't it important to have a telephone in case of sudden emergency — illness, accident or fire? Of course, you are right, but here in a thickly populated country like England one is seldom far from a telephone in case of dreadful necessity.

Is there any conclusion to be drawn from my obstinacy and willfulness, my escapism, if you like to call it that? I think perhaps I had better try to justify myself by trying to prove that what I like is good. At least I have proved to myself that what many people think necessary is not necessary at all. I admit that in different circumstances —if I were a tycoon, for instance, or bedridden, I might find a telephone essential. But then if I were a secretary or taxi-driver I should find a typewriter or a car essential. Let me put it another way: there are two things for which the English seem to show particular aptitude: one is mechanical invention, the other is literature. My own business happens to be with the use of words but I see I must now stop using them. I have just been handed a slip of paper to say that somebody is waiting to speak to me on the telephone. I think I had better answer it. After all, one never knows, it may be something important.

How to Cope with Your Telephone

It's one of the most useful things in the world when it's working properly. But as soon as anything goes wrong or you get a massive bill, it's not such a nice number. Actionwoman has some helpful hints.

It's only 6 a. m. and the phone is ringing merrily downstairs. You stumble out of bed and of course it's a wrong number.

Well, there's not much you can do about that, but there are steps you can take if it happens again. For a start, if you keep getting wrong numbers your phone could be faulty. So you should get the line checked (dial 151) as soon as possible.

On the other hand, putting out early morning calls is some people's idea of a joke. Most of us would take action if we received an obscene call, but this sort of early morning joker often gets away scot-free. While you might turn a deaf ear to it the first time, being bothered like this can be as irritating as getting a heavy breather on the line.

It's a sad fact that the people most plagued by any kind of persistent caller are those who have made "news" for some reason — perhaps something as simple as writing a letter or putting an ad in the local paper. Or the phone directory may suggest that they're living on their own in that their name may have a Mrs. or Miss in front of it. That's why the police advise any woman in this situation to stick instead to initials only.

If the call is obscene in any way, make a note of the time and then phone the police. If your caller simply likes getting people out of bed, you could still ask the police for their advice — once you've had the line checked, of course. Or get the Post Office to monitor your calls, but you'll probably have to pay ￡5 a quarter plus V AT (unless you have a legal case and the police have asked for it). This means the local operator would ask all callers who they were, giving you the choice of refusing or accepting the call.

Or, free of charge, you can simply go ex-directory. And arrange for your number to be listed in special records used only by directory-enquiry operators and given to callers on request. In other words, your friends can still get hold of your number but it doesn't appear in the phone book.

On Buying Books

Time spent in a bookshop can be most enjoyable, whether you are a book-lover or merely there to buy a book as a present. You may even have entered the shop just to find shelter from a sudden shower. Whatever the reason, you can soon become totally unaware of your surroundings. The desire to pick up a book with an attractive dust-jacket is irresistible, although this method of selection ought not to be followed, as you might end up with a rather dull book. You soon become engrossed in some book or other, and usually it is only much later that you realize you have spent far too much time there and must dash off to keep some forgotten appointment — without buying a book, of course. This opportunity to escape the realities of everyday life is, I think, the main attraction of a bookshop. There are not many places where it is possible to do this. A music shop is very much like a bookshop. You can wander round such places to your heart's content. If it is a good shop, no assistant will approach you with the inevitable greeting: "Can I help you, sir?" You needn't buy anything you don't want. In a bookshop an assistant should remain in the background until you have finished browsing. Then, and only then, are his services necessary. Of course, you may want to find out where a particular section is, but when he has led you there, the assistant should retire discreetly and look as if he is not interested in selling a single book.

You have to be careful not to be attracted by the variety of books in a bookshop. It is very easy to enter the shop looking for a book on, say, ancient coins and to come out carrying a copy of the latest best-selling novel and perhaps a book about brass-rubbing — something which had only vaguely interested you up till then. This volume on the subject, however, happened to be so well illustrated and the part of the text you read proved so interesting, that you just had to buy it. This sort of thing can be very dangerous.

Apart from running up a huge account, you can waste a great deal of time wandering from section to section. Book-sellers must be both long-suffering and indulgent. There is a story which well illustrates this. A medical student had to read a text-book which was far too expensive for him to buy. He couldn't obtain it from the library and the only copy he could find was in his bookshop. Every afternoon, therefore, he would go along to the shop and read a little of the book at a time. One day, however, he was dismayed to find the book missing from its usual place and was about to leave when he noticed the owner of the shop beckoning to him. Expecting to be told off, he went towards him. To his surprise, the owner pointed to the book, which was tucked away in a corner, "I put it there in case anyone was tempted to buy it," he said, and left the delighted student to continue his reading.

By Robert Best (slightly altered)

Hallo, Good Buy

You don't have to be mean or poverty-stricken to buy second-hand goods. Charity shops, street markets, second-hand shops, jumble sales and classified ad columns are not only the places to find useful bargains, they're also a great source of rare, collectable and sometimes valuable items.

Whether you're interested in decorating your room, brightening your wardrobe, starting a collection or making some extra cash, our beginner's guide will introduce you to Britain's network of second-hand outlets.

Buying second-hand demands a new attitude to shopping. You can't expect to walk into a shop and come out with exactly what you wanted. You have to enjoy browsing and to be able to persevere. You'll find you develop a hunter's nose for the right sort of shop —usually it's not the one with a few wonderful bargains in the window and not much else besides, but the one with tables overflowing with unorganized jumble. Don't be put off by "Antique" shops that look a bit posh. They often do house clearances and end up with items they want to sell off cheaply because they don't fit in with their stock. And don't be alarmed by an absence of price tags. Often it shows the owner is prepared to negotiate.

It sounds obvious, but second-hand goods don't come with a guarantee or a manufacturer's recommended retail price. It's up to you to ensure that your purchase is all it seems to be, and that you're paying a fair price.

Books, magazines, comics and annuals fall into two categories —valuable collector's items and a good cheap read. Serious collectors must check the condition of publications: magazines with missing pages and books with torn jackets automatically lose value, whatever their contents. First editions, even recent ones are worth seeking out. If you find a hardback book with the words "First printed in Great Britain in", followed by the date and no information about reprints, you'll probably be able to make a small profit on it in a few years. Names to watch for at the moment are Martin Amis (he's taken over from his dad as a collectable author), Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, P. D. James and Angela Carter.

The most collectable old magazines are those devoted to music, movies and fashion. Ones with stars on the cover fetch the highest prices. News and picture magazines from earlier this century can be valuable too, but avoid the ones with stories about royalty —they're the ones everyone kept. If you discover a magazine featuring the sinking of the Titanic, you could have something worth ￡15 —￡20 on your hands.

Old comics and sci-fi magazines are great fun but not usually worth much unless they're pre-war and in good condition. If you just want to fill up your bookshelves for a rainy afternoon, go for second-hand paperbacks. They're always cheap —but have a flick through to make sure there are no pages missing.

Who Killed Benny Paret?

Sometime about 1935 or 1936 I had an interview with Mike Jacobs, the prizefight promoter. I was a fledgling newspaper reporter at that time; my beat was education, but during the vacation season I found myself on varied assignments, all the way from ship news to sports reporting. In this way I found myself sitting opposite the most powerful figure in the boxing world.

There was nothing spectacular in Mr. Jacobs' manner or appearance; but when he spoke about prizefights, he was no longer a bland little man but a colossus who sounded the way Napoleon must have sounded when he reviewed a battle. You knew you were listening to Number One. His saying something made it true.

We discussed what to him was the only important element in successful promoting — how to please the crowd. So far as he was concerned, there was no mystery to it. You put killers in the ring and the people filled your arena. You hire boxing artists — men who are adroit at feinting, parrying, weaving, jabbing, and dancing, but who don't pack dynamite in their fists — and you wind up counting your empty seats. So you searched for the killers and sluggers and maulers — fellows who could hit with the force of a baseball bat.

I asked Mr. Jacobs if he was speaking literally when he said people came out to see the killer.

"They don't come out to see a tea party," he said evenly. "They come out to see the knockout. They come out to see a man hurt. If they think anything else, they're kidding themselves."

Recently a young man by the name of Benny Paret was killed in the ring. The killing was seen by millions; it was on television. In the twelfth round he was hit hard in the head several times, went down, was counted out, and never came out of the coma.

The Paret fight produced a flurry of investigations. Governor Rockefeller was shocked by what happened and appointed a committee to assess the responsibility. The New York State Boxing Commission decided to find out what was wrong. The District Attorney's office expressed its concern. One question that was solemnly studied in all three probes concerned the action of the referee. Did he act in time to stop the fight? Another question had to do with the role of the examining doctors who certified the physical fitness of the fighters before the bout. Still another question involved Mr. Paret's manager; did he rush his boy into the fight without adequate time to recuperate from the previous one?

In short, the investigators looked into every possible cause except the real one. Benny Paret was killed because the human fist delivers enough impact, when directed against the head, to produce a massive hemorrhage in the

brain. The human brain is the most delicate and complex mechanism in all creation. It has a lacework of millions of highly fragile nerve connections. Nature attempts to protect this exquisitely intricate machinery by encasing it in a hard shell. Fortunately, the shell is thick enough to withstand a great deal of pounding. Nature, however, can protect man against everything except man himself. Not every blow to the head will kill a man — but there is always the risk of concussion and damage to the brain. A prizefighter may be able to survive even repeated brain concussions and go on fighting, but the damage to his brain may be permanent.

In any event, it is futile to investigate the referee's role and seek to determine whether he should have intervened to stop the fight earlier. This is not where the primary responsibility lies. The primary responsibility lies with the people who pay to see a man hurt. The referee who stops a fight too soon from the crowd's viewpoint can expect to be booed. The crowd wants the knockout; it wants to see a man stretched out on the canvas. This is the supreme moment in boxing. It is nonsense to talk about prizefighting as a test of boxing skills. No crowd was ever brought to its feet screaming and cheering at the sight of two men beautifully dodging and weaving out of each other's jabs. The time the crowd comes alive is when a man is hit hard over the heart or the head, when his mouthpiece flies out, when blood squirts out of his nose or eyes, when he wobbles under the attack and his pursuer continues to smash at him with poleax impact.

Don't blame it on the referee. Don't even blame it on the fight managers. Put the blame where it belongs — on the prevailing mores that regard prize-fighting as a perfectly proper enterprise and vehicle of entertainment. No one doubts that many people enjoy prizefighting and will miss it if it should be thrown out. And that is precisely the point.

A Piece of Steak

With the last morsel of bread Tom King wiped his plate clean of the last bit of flour gravy and chewed the resulting mouthful in a slow and thoughtful way. When he arose from the table, he was oppressed by the feeling that he was distinctly hungry. Yet he alone had eaten. The two children in the other room had been sent early to bed in order that in sleep they might forget they had gone supperless. His wife had touched nothing, and had sat silently and watched him with troubled eyes. She was a thin, worn woman of the working class, though signs of an earlier prettiness were still there in her face. The flour for the gravy she had borrowed from the neighbor across the hall. The last two ha 'pennies had gone to buy the bread.

He sat down by the window on a rickety chair that protested under his weight, and quite mechanically he put his pipe in his mouth and dipped into the side pocket of his coat. The absence of any tobacco made him aware of his action, and with a frown for his forgetfulness he put the pipe away. His movements were slow, almost clumsy, as though he were burdened by the heavy weight of his muscles. He was a solid-bodied, stolid-looking man, and his appearance did not suffer from being overprepossessing. His rough clothes were old and shapeless. The uppers of his shoes were too weak to carry the heavy resoling that was itself of no recent date. And his cotton shirt, a cheap, two-shilling affair, showed a frayed collar and ineradicable paint stains.

But it was Tom King's face that advertised him unmistakably for what he was. It was the face of a typical prizefighter; of one who had put in long years of service in the squared ring and by that means, developed and emphasized all the marks of the fighting beast. It was distinctly a threatening appearance, and that no feature of it might escape notice, it was clean-shaven. The lips were shapeless and made his mouth harsh like a deep cut in his face. The jaw was aggressive, brutal, heavy. The eyes, slow of movement and heavy-lidded, were almost expressionless under the shaggy brows. Sheer animal that he was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy, lionlike —the eyes of a fighting animal. The forehead slanted quickly back to the hair, which, clipped close, showed every swelling of an evil-looking head. A nose, twice broken and molded variously by countless blows, and a cauliflower ear, permanently swollen and distorted to twice its size, completed his adornment, while the beard, fresh-shaven as it was, sprouted in the skin and gave the face a blue-black stain.

Altogether, it was the face of a man to be afraid of in a dark alley or lonely place. And yet Tom King was not a criminal, nor had he ever done anything criminal. Except for brawls, common to the boxing world, he had harmed no one. Nor had he ever been known to start a quarrel. He was a professional, and all the fighting brutishness of him was reserved for his professional appearances. Outside the ring he was slow-going, easy-natured, and, in his younger days, when money was plentiful, too generous for his own good. He bore no grudges and had few enemies. Fighting was a business with him. In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no hatred in it. It was a plain business proposition. Audiences assembled and paid for the spectacle of men knocking each other out. The winner took the big end of the purse. When Tom King faced the Woolloomoolloo Gouger, twenty years before, he knew that the Gouger's jaw was only four months healed after having been broken in a Newcastle bout. And he had played for that jaw and broken it again in the ninth round, not because he bore the Gouger any ill will but because that was the surest way to put the Gouger out and win the big end of the purse. Nor had the Gouger borne him any ill will for it. It was the game, and both knew the game and played it.

The impression of his hunger came back on him. "Blimey, but couldn't I go a piece of steak!" he muttered aloud, clenching his huge fists.

"I tried both Burke's an' Sawley's", his wife said half apologetically.

"An' they wouldn't?" he demanded.

"Not a ha'penny. Burke said —" She faltered.

"G'wan! Wot'd he say?"

"As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel 'ud do ye tonight, an' as how yer score was comfortable big as it was."

Tom King grunted but did not reply. He was busy thinking of the bull terrier he had kept in his younger days to which he had fed steaks without end. Burke would have given him credit for a thousand steaks —then. But times had changed. Tom King was getting old; and old men, fighting before second-rate clubs, couldn't expect to run bills of any size with the tradesmen.

He had got up in the morning with a longing for a piece of steak, and the longing had not died down. He had not had a

fair training for this fight. It was a drought year in Australia, times were hard, and even the most irregular work was difficult to find. He had had no sparring partner, and his food had not been of the best nor always sufficient. He had done a few day's navvy work when he could get it and he had run around the Domain in the early mornings to get his legs in shape. But it was hard, training without a partner and with a wife and two kiddies that must be fed. Credit with the tradesmen had undergone very slight expansion when he was matched with Sandel. The secretary of the Gayety Club had advanced him three pounds — the loser's end of the purse —and beyond that had refused to go. Now and again he had managed to borrow a few shillings from old pals, who would have lent more only that it was a drought year and they were hard put themselves. No — and there was no use in disguising the fact — his training had not been satisfactory. He should have had better food and no worries. Besides, when a man is forty, it is harder to get into condition than when he is twenty.

"What time is it, Lizzie?" he asked.

His wife went across the hall to inquire, and came back. "Quarter before eight."

"They'll be startin' the first bout in a few minutes," he said. "Only a tryout. Then there's a four-round spar 'tween Dealer Wells an' Gridley, an' a ten-round go 'tween Starlight an' some sailor bloke. I don't come on for over an hour."

At the end of another silent ten minutes he rose to his feet. "Truth is, Lizzie, I ain't had proper trainin'."

He reached for his hat and started for the door. He did not offer to kiss her — he never did on going out — but on this night she dared to kiss him, throwing her arms around him and compelling him to bend down to her face. She looked quite small against the massive bulk of the man.

"Good luck, Tom," she said. "You gotter do 'im.

"Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated. "That's all there is to it.

I jus' gotter do' im."

He laughed with an attempt at heartiness, while she pressed more closely against him. Across her shoulders he looked around the bare room. It was all he had in the world, with the rent overdue, and her and the kiddies. And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate and cubs —not like a modern workingman going to his machine grind, but in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.

"I gotter do 'im," he repeated, this time a hint of desperation in his voice. "If it's a win, it's thirty quid — an' I can pay all that's owin', with a lump o' money left over. If it's a lose, I get naught — not even a penny for me to ride home on the tram. The secretary's give all that's comin' from a loser's end. Good-by, old woman. I'll come straight home if it's a win."

"An' I'll be waitin' up," she called to him along the hall.

It was full two miles to the Gayety, and as he walked along he remembered how in his palmy days —he had once been the heavyweight champion of New South Wales —he would have ridden in a cab to the fight, and how, most likely, some heavy backer would have paid for the cab and ridden with him. There were Tommy Burns and that Yankee, Jack Johnson — they rode about in motorcars. And he walked! And, as any man knew, a hard two miles was not the best preliminary to a fight. He was an old un and the world did not wag well with old uns. He was good for nothing now except navvy work, and his broken nose and swollen ear were against him even in that. He found himself wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no one had told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had. It had been so easy. Big money —sharp, glorious fights —periods of rest and loafing in between — a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk — and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's "King wins!" and his name in the sporting columns next day.

Those had been times! But he realized now, in his slow, ruminating way, that it was the old uns he had been putting away. He was Youth, rising; and they were Age, sinking. No wonder it had been easy —they with their swollen veins and battered knuckles and weary in the bones of them from the long battles they had already fought. He remembered the time he put out old Stowsher Bill, at Rush-Cutters Bay, in the eighteenth round, and how old Bill had cried afterward in the dressing room like a baby. Perhaps old Bill's rent had been overdue. Perhaps he'd had at home a missus an' a couple of kiddies. And perhaps Bill, that very day of the fight, had had a hungering for a piece of steak. Bill had fought the game and taken incredible punishment. He could see now, after he had gone through the mill himself, that Stowsher Bill had fought for a bigger stake, that night twenty years ago, than had young Tom King, who had fought for glory and easy money. No wonder Stowsher Bill had cried afterward in the dressing room.

They had tried him out against the old uns, and one after another he had put them away — laughing when, like old Stowsher Bill, they cried in the dressing room. And now he was an old un, and they tried out the youngsters on him. There was that bloke Sandel. He had come over from New Zealand with a record behind him. But nobody in Australia knew anything about him, so they put him up against old Tom King. If Sandel made a showing, he would be given better men to fight with bigger purses to win; so it was to be depended upon that he would put up a fierce battle. He had everything to win by it — money and glory and career; and Tom King was the grizzled old chopping block that guarded the highway to fame and fortune. And he had nothing to win except thirty quid, to pay to the landlord and the tradesmen. And as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of youth, glorious youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, youth was the nemesis. It destroyed the old uns and minded not that in so doing, it destroyed itself. It enlarged its arteries and smashed its knuckles, and was in turn destroyed by youth. For youth was ever youthful. It was only age that grew old. [Tom King had a bout with young Sandel and lost the game.]

He had not a copper in his pocket, and the two-mile walk home seemed very long. He was certainly getting old. Crossing the Domain he sat down suddenly on a bench, pained by the thought of the missus sitting up for him,

waiting to learn the outcome of the fight. That was harder than any knockout, and it seemed almost impossible to face.

He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week before he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. The hunger palpitation at the pit of the stomach was sickening. His wretchedness overwhelmed him, and into his eyes came an unusual moisture. He covered his face with his hands, and, as he cried, he remembered Stowsher Bill and how he had served him that night in the long ago. Poor old Stowsher Bill! He could understand now why Bill had cried in the dressing room. "Keep Class 2 under Your Thumb"

"You'll have to keep Class 2 under your thumb," said the headmaster. To make this clear, he showed me his own thumb; a huge thing, like a pocket cudgel. I felt very pale. I had reason enough to distrust my thumb.

Class 2. They were top year boys. Their own teacher had been sick for a long time; a succession of startled substitutes had stood before them, ducked, winced and fled.

I was the seventh that term. No one quite knew where the class had got in any subject. It was plain the headmaster thought they had got nowhere. But I was to take them for nearly everything; and first, that awful afternoon, for history.

I trembled down to Room H. In the hall I was nearly knocked over by a boy illegally running. I should have told him off; instead, I apologized. It was all wrong; my mood was all placatory; I was, inwardly, all white flag.

The room was easily traced by the noise that was coming from it. It didn't sound a studious noise. I crept through the door. Enormous boys were everywhere, doing indefensible things. I can't recall much in particular what they were doing; indeed, that was the worst of it —that these improprieties couldn't be nailed down.

I managed to make out that mixed up with these giants was a certain amount of furniture. This consisted, I found, of individual desks; doll's house things that rested on mountainous knees and swayed from side to side. Too negligently or maliciously treated, one would, from time to time, crash to the floor. There were certainly fights going on; and I believe one desk was chasing another. The air was full of pieces of chalk, a strange rain of it.

Feeling invisible, I walked towards the teacher's desk. Not an eye was turned in my direction. I just stood there and looked at them and an awful pointless indignation mounted in me. Was I not a teacher? Was I really so puny, so ineffective?

"Now, shut up," I shouted. There was a fatal note of pleading in my voice. They took no notice, so I shouted again.

And then I said, "If you don't shut up, I'll..." Now they heard me and an awful silence came, not an obedient silence but a skeptical one. My voice trailed away. If they didn't shut up, I would — what? I was toying inwardly with ideas of thunderbolts, earthquakes, mass executions. But in cold blood I could think of no practical substitute for these dramatic punishments.

A boy leaned back in his desk, indolently far back, and said, "Are you going to try to teach us?" He looked round and laughed. There was a murmur from the back of the room and another laugh.

I was shocked to the core. Shocked, stung and frightened. "Yes, I am," I shouted. "And you —you had better shut up."

They all laughed. Then they turned to one another and discussed the matter. A fight began at the back. But what hurt me most was that in the middle of the room sat a very studious-looking boy reading a book. He looked up, raised a wry eyebrow, looked at me, raised his eyebrow higher, and then shrugged himself back into his book.

I shouted for a while, but it was beyond me. I hadn't the manner. I was a plain impostor. My blushing and bawling were a joy to them. There was, for a time, pandemonium, like a big scene in an opera being played backwards on a gramophone.

It struck me that I had in my briefcase a book on Chaucer. It contained a large number of documents of the period. Accounts of street brawls. It seemed appropriate.

It was, alas, very big and looked very academic. "Cor, the Bible," said a voice. "Read any good book lately?" said another. "You hit me with that and I'll tell my dad." "He can read!" And in falsetto, "Tell us a fairy story!"

From Roaring Boys by Edward Blishen

An Exeter School Boy

Colin Lockwood was bored and tired. There were three reasons for this, he told himself; it was an exceptionally warm afternoon; he had only had a few hours' sleep last night because of the air-raid; and Mr. Kitchen, the history master, was being even duller and more aggravating than usual. Sixty or seventy people dead. No one Colin or his family knew; most of the bombs had fallen on King Street, on Wonford and Pennsylvania, areas some distance away from where he lived. But the stories of what had happened had been filtering through all day. More than a hundred houses destroyed. An air-raid warden blown off his bike and thrown head-first into a sewage pond, not a scratch on him; the only treatment he needed was a hot bath.

Why Exeter? There were no targets the Germans needed to destroy, no industry, no munitions factories, nothing. But it had a beautiful cathedral. That was the reason, people said.

He gazed out of the window. Lucky third-formers outside on the field, playing cricket! Pluck! The noise of ball on bat. Pluck! A shout of excitement: someone had hit a six. If you hit a six that smashed the pavilion clock, the school presented you with the bat and ball to keep. No-one had ever smashed the pavilion clock, of course. And tomorrow, when he should be out on the field, when it was the turn of the fifth-formers, it would rain. He was sure it would rain. After all, it was only just May; afternoons like this were a surprise, a real bonus.

He rested his head on his arms, and looked at the new leaf-buds on the trees; when he half-shut his eyes they were like green dust in the slanting light, pale, as if they had not expected such sun, such heat. His sister Mary had a dress that colour. An expensive thing it was. He dozed right off. He was woken by a sharp dig in the ribs. It was the boy who shared his desk. Terry Wootton. Colin disliked Wootton, who was an evacuee from London and who seemed to think, like all the evacuees from London, that he was superior in every way to the Exeter boys.

Colin sensed that something was wrong. The whole class

was staring at him. There were a few grins of malice, particularly on the faces of the Cockneys.

"Go on! Answer!" Wootton hissed.

Mr. Kitchen was leaning against the blackboard, idly throwing a piece of chalk in the air and catching it again. He looked distinctly unamused. Dangerous, in fact.

"Did you ask me a question, sir?" Colin ventured, timidly. The class dissolved in laughter. "No, I did not," said Mr. Kitchen, and added, "I hardly ever think it worthwhile asking a question of you, Lockwood, as I know perfectly well I shall never get an answer. At least, not a correct answer." The class guffawed obligingly. "As it so happened I was speaking to Wootton. I was merely wondering if he could explain why you were fast asleep."

Colin glared at his neighbour, who was looking intently at his exercise book, a self-satisfied smile on his face. I'll wipe that smirk off your ugly mug, Colin thought; just wait till the bell goes!

"As you're wasting both my time and that of the whole class," Mr. Kitchen went on, "I'll waste yours, Lockwood. You can write me a four-page essay entitled 'Why I am a fool.' No, boy! Not why I am a fool. I may well be one, but I'm not interested in your views on that. Why you" — and he jabbed his finger at Colin — "are a fool. And that's in addition to the homework I set just now. I suppose you were asleep then, were you? Do you know what it is?" "No, sir."

"So you'll just have to ask Wootton, won't you? Now, as I was saying, in a city like Exeter there is history in every nook and cranny."

Colin seethed with anger. Who did Kitchen think he was? So many members of staff had been called up for the war in the last year or two that the whole school had gone to rack and ruin as a result. Aged fools, yanked out of their retirement bungalows, attempted to go through the motions of teaching.

Shaka — King of the Zulus

Shaka's military career started at about the same time as Napoleon's came to an end at Waterloo. Neither man had ever heard of the other, yet they had a surprising amount in common, particularly in their genius for war and politics. Had Shaka been born in Europe he too might well have altered the course of world affairs. As it was, he built the Zulu nation. And he would have destroyed it had it not been for the courage of a minor chieftain, Gala.

When he was still only twenty-nine, Shaka seized the throne of the Zulus. It took him very little time to turn the Zulu people into a first-class fighting race because he was absolutely ruthless, never moving without an escort of "slayers", whose job it was to kill anyone who displeased him in any way. If his warriors could not run 50 miles a day, they died; if they were unable to dance barefoot on a carpet of jungle thorns, they died; if they showed anything less than suicidal courage in battle, they would be unhesitatingly murdered by the slayers. Shaka was inhuman, perhaps, but he built up a formidable army in a very short time.

Shaka had already increased his kingdom from 100 square miles to 100,000 when personal tragedy struck: his mother, Nandi, died. Nandi was the one person for whom Shaka felt deep affection, and on her death something seemed to snap in his mind. What followed was unbelievable, but it was recorded by an Englishman named Flynn who was in the area at the time.

Nandi was buried, and 12,000 warriors were ordered to guard her grave for a year. Then Shaka sent his impis or regiments to scour the countryside and punish all those who had failed to be present at the funeral. Only after this had been done did he announce his orders for mourning: no crops were to be planted the following year; no milk was to be used — it was to be drawn from the cow and poured on to the earth and all women who were found with child during the following year were to be put to death with their husbands. As the staple diet of the Zulus consisted of grain and milk products, this order was little less than a sentence of national starvation.

Shaka now developed a brooding and bitter spirit: "I have conquered the world but lost my mother," he would cry, "and all taste has gone out of my life."

After two months of intensive mourning over Nandi's death, the country was in a desperate state. The fields were overgrown with weeds and one of the staple diets, namely milk, was no longer on the food list. Total ruin now faced the Zulu nation, and it was obvious that those who had not been killed by Shaka would certainly starve to death. Finally, one of Shaka's warriors, Gala, determined to end the tyranny. "It is enough," he told his family. "Someone must tell the Great Elephant. I shall do it. “Gala’s family stared at him in horror: to challenge the King's wishes at such a moment was to ask for instant death. But Gala took his warrior's stick and went to Bulawayo to see Shaka. When he reached the right distance from the royal enclosure he shouted: "O King, you have destroyed your country. What will you reign over? Will you create a new race? Shall we all die because your mother died? You have destroyed the country. Your country will be inhabited by other kings, for your people will die of hunger. As for me, O King, I say you are dead yourself through this mother of yours. Stuff a stone into your stomach. This is not the first time anyone has died in Zululand!"

Stuff a stone into your stomach! This was the Zulu way of saying: "pull yourself together". There was a gasp of horror from the onlookers, and the slayers took a grip on their clubs. That a man should dare to speak to the King in such a way was unthinkable, and Gala's life seemed to be measured in seconds. But Shaka turned to his Councillors and said: "What use are you to me? You never dared, like Gala, to tell me to stuff a stone in my stomach. Now let all men know that crops are to be planted as usual and that milk may be drunk again. And as for you," said Shaka, turning to Gala, "you shall have a mighty gift of many cattle."

From an article in Look and Learn

The Stamping of the Thorns

Shaka's particular genius lay in his great personal attention to detail and in his capacity for hard work. If at all possible, he always insisted on inspecting everything himself, and he invariably checked all reports by getting evidence from as many sources as possible. He was a firm believer in the saying: "It is the master's eye which makes the cow grow fat."

Two months after becoming king, Shaka called all his "regiments" together. His combined fighting forces totalled only about 500 men. He told them of the virtues of the

short, heavy stabbing spear or assegai which he himself had designed to replace the light throwing one used in the past by the Zulu fighters. As he expected, the younger soldiers took up the new assegai with enthusiasm, soon to be followed by the older men.

Next Shaka ordered all his regiments to throw away their sandals. There was considerable protest at this, especially from the older groups, but he pointed to his own bare feet and even ran a race to prove that he was faster than any of his men wearing sandals.

A month later, Shaka noticed that there was still a lot of dissatisfaction and grumbling about his order that sandals should no longer be worn. So, he told one of his regiments to collect many basketfuls of the sharp "devil thorns". These thorns have three spikes, one of which always points upwards when they lie on the ground.

When enough of these thorns had been collected, Shaka ordered them to be spread over the parade ground. All his regiments were then ordered to parade a little to the side of the ground covered with thorns. Shaka then addressed them: "It has come to my ears," he said, "that some of you have soft feet, and this has made me very sad. So I have decided to help you harden them!"

Shaka then ordered his men to stamp the thorns into the ground with their bare feet. Anyone who hesitated or did not stamp hard enough was to be killed at once by his "slayers".

The regiments gritted their teeth and, led by Shaka himself, spread over the parade ground. Shaka turned to face them and the stamping began. Shaka's feet, however, were horny and impervious. He felt nothing; but his eagle eye at once picked out those who were hesitant. These men were told to stand forward and were then clubbed to death by the slayers. And so he went on, searching up and down the lines, but after half a dozen examples had been made all the soldiers stamped as hard as they could.

When Shaka was satisfied that the thorns had been stamped out of sight he told his men they could go. That evening they were given a great feast at which they could eat and drink as much as they liked.

A Winter to Remember

According to the weather men last winter was one of the worst in living memory.

We live in the depths of the country, and my whole family agree that it was certainly a winter we shall never forget. Snow began to fall at round about the beginning of the New Year and continued on and off for approximately ten days.

At first we were all thrilled to see it. It fell silently and relentlessly in large soft flakes until every ugly patch and corner of our rather rambling garden was smoothed over and had become a spotless white canopy. The children soon spoilt its beauty by having snowball fights and leaving their footprints all over it. Hungry birds too, in search of scraps of food, made delicate impressions on its surface. It was now, when the garden was all churned up and of a dirty grey color, that a severe frost set in, hardening the snow into ugly lumps of grimy concrete. For the next three months the whole countryside lay in a grip of iron.

Every day the birds grew tamer, often waiting hopefully almost on our backdoor step. We fed them with bits of cheese, chopped up meat and any leftovers we had. We also put out bowls of water, which unfortunately within an hour had frozen solid.

Indoors it was pretty cold too. Our central heating system proved both inadequate and uncooperative: inadequate partly because it needed overhauling and partly because the poor state of the doors and most of the windows made a whistling stream of cold air come through; uncooperative because occasionally it simply went on strike. To make matters worse there were tiny holes in the brickwork of many of the rooms. As a result the water pipes froze so that for several weeks our water supply had to be brought in buckets from a nearby farm. We tried to buy a number of oil-stoves to keep these rooms warm, but other people had thought of doing this too — when we called at the village shop the shopkeeper told us she had sold out and that although there were more on order they were unlikely to be delivered until the spring — which, of course, was a great comfort.

Throughout January and February and much of March we sat about in our overcoats and warmed ourselves by tramping to and from the farm, lugging buckets of water. On one occasion the water actually froze before it reached the house, and our youngest son — not the most intelligent of youth — promptly took it all the way back to the farm. However, one good thing did happen. One of the children dropped a container with a dozen eggs in it. I stooped down furiously to pick up what I thought would be the messy remains only to discover the eggs had come to no harm —they were as solid as if they had been hard-boiled.

Late in March, it finally thawed. Water squirted from pipes in at least half a dozen places. Instead of carting buckets of water into the kitchen from the farm we now brought them in from different parts of the house. Eventually we found a plumber. The plumber undoubtedly saved us from drowning. I have been devoted to plumbers ever since.

January Wind

The January wind has a hundred voices. It can scream, it can bellow, it can whisper, and it can sing a lullaby. It can roar through the leafless oaks and shout down the hillside, and it can murmur in the white pines rooted among the granite ledges where lichen makes strange hieroglyphics. It can whistle down a chimney and set the hearth-flames to dancing. On a sunny day it can pause in a sheltered spot and breathe a promise of spring and violets. In the cold of a lonely night it can rattle the sash and stay there muttering of ice and snow banks and deep-frozen ponds. Sometimes the January wind seems to come from the farthest star in the outer darkness, so remote and so impersonal is its voice. That is the wind of a January dawn, in the half-light that trembles between day and night. It is a wind that merely quivers the trees, its force sensed but not seen, a force that might almost hold back the day if it were so directed. Then the east brightens, and the wind relaxes — the stars, its source, grown dim.

And sometimes the January wind is so intimate that you know it came only from the next hill, a little wind that plays with leaves and puffs at chimney smoke and whistles like a little boy with puckered lips. It makes the little cedar trees quiver, as with delight. It shadow-boxes with the weather-vane. It tweaks an ear, and whispers laughing words about crocuses and daffodils, and nips the nose and

dances off.

But you never know, until you hear its voice, which wind is here today. Or, more important, which will be here tomorrow.

Christmas

That fall, before it was discovered that the soles of both my shoes were worn clear through, I still went to Sunday school. And one time the Sunday-school superintendent made a speech to all the classes. He said that these were hard times, and that many poor children weren't getting enough to eat. It was the first time that I had heard about it. He asked everybody to bring some food for the poor children next Sunday. I felt very sorry for the poor children.

Also, little envelopes were distributed to all the classes. Each little boy and girl was to bring money for the poor, next Sunday. The pretty Sunday-school teacher explained that we were to write our names, or have our parents write them, up in the left-hand corner of the little envelopes. ... I told my mother all about it when I came home. And my mother gave me, the next Sunday, a small bag of potatoes to carry to Sunday school. I supposed the poor children's mothers would make potato soup out of them. ... Potato soup was good. My father, who was quite a joker, would always say, as if he were surprised, "Ah! I see we have some nourishing potato soup today!" It was so good that we had it every day. My father was at home all day long and every day, now; and I liked that. I had my parents all to myself, too; the others were away. My oldest brother was in Quincy, and memory does not reveal where the others were: perhaps with relatives in the country.

Taking my small bag of potatoes to Sunday school, I looked around for the poor children; I was disappointed not to see them. I had heard about poor children in stories. But I was told just to put my contribution with the others on the big table in the side room.

I had brought with me the little yellow envelope, with some money in it for the poor children. My mother had put the money in it and sealed it up. She wouldn't tell me how much money she had put in it, but it felt like several dimes. Only she wouldn't let me write my name on the envelope. I had learned to write my name, and I was proud of being able to do it. But my mother said firmly, no, I must not write my name on the envelope; she didn't tell me why. On the way to Sunday school I had pressed the envelope against the coins until I could tell what they were; they weren't dimes but pennies.

When I handed in my envelope, my Sunday school teacher noticed that my name wasn't on it, and she gave me a pencil; I could write my own name, she said. So I did. But I was confused because my mother had said not to; and when I came home, I confessed what I had done. She looked distressed. "I told you not to!" she said. But she didn't explain why. ...

I didn't go back to school that fall. My mother said it was because I was sick. I did have a cold the week that school opened; I had been playing in the gutters and had got my feet wet, because there were holes in my shoes. My father cut insoles out of cardboard, and I wore those in my shoes. As long as I had to stay in the house anyway, they were all right.

I stayed cooped up in the house, without any companionship. We didn't take a Sunday paper any more, and though I did not read small print, I could see the Santa Clauses and holly wreaths in the advertisements.

There was a calendar in the kitchen. The red days were Sundays and holidays; and that red was Christmas. I knew just when Christmas was going to be.

But there was something queer! My father and mother didn't say a word about Christmas. And once when I spoke of it, there was a strange, embarrassed silence; so I didn't say anything more about it. But I wondered, and was troubled. Why didn't they say anything about it? Was what I had said I wanted too expensive?

I wasn't arrogant and talkative now. I was silent and frightened. What was the matter? Why didn't my father and mother say anything about Christmas? As the day approached, my chest grew tighter with anxiety.

Now it was the day before Christmas. I couldn't be mistaken. But not a word about it from my father and mother. I waited in painful bewilderment all day. I had supper with them, and was allowed to sit up for an hour. I was waiting for them to say something. "It's time for you to go to bed," my mother said gently. I had to say something. "This is Christmas Eve, isn't it?" I asked, as if I didn't know.

My father and mother looked at one another. Then my mother looked away. Her face was pale and stony. My father cleared his throat, and his face took on a joking look. He pretended he hadn't known it was Christmas Eve, because he hadn't been reading the papers. He said he would go downtown and find out.

My mother got up and walked out of the room. I didn't want my father to have to keep on being funny about it, so

I got up and went to bed. I went by myself without having

a light. I undressed in the dark and crawled into bed.

I was numb. As if I had been hit by something. It was hard to breathe. I ached all through. I was stunned — with finding out the truth.

My body knew before my mind quite did. In a minute, when I could think, my mind would know. And as the pain in my body ebbed, the pain in my mind began. I knew. I couldn't put it into words yet. But I knew why I had taken only a little bag of potatoes to Sunday school that fall. I knew why there had been only pennies in my little yellow envelope. I knew why I hadn't gone to school that fall —why I hadn't any new shoes — why we had been living on potato soup all winter. All these things, and others, many others fitted themselves together in my mind, and meant something.

Then the words came into my mind and I whispered them into the darkness.

"We're poor!"

That was it. I was one of those poor children I had been sorry for, when I heard about them in Sunday school. My mother hadn't told me. My father was out of work, and we hadn't any money. That was why there wasn't going to be any Christmas at our house.

"We're poor." There in bed in the dark, I whispered it over and over to myself. I was making myself get used to it.

It wasn't so bad, now that I knew, I just hadn't known! I had thought all sorts of foolish things: that I was going to Ann Arbor —going to be a lawyer —going to make speeches in the Square, going to be President. Now I know better.

I had wanted (something) for Christmas, I didn't want it, now. I didn't want anything.

I lay there in the dark, feeling the cold emotion of renunciation. (The tendrils of desire unfold their clasp on the outer world of objects, withdraw, shrivel up. Wishes shrivel up, turn black, die. It is like that.)

It hurt. But nothing would ever hurt again. I would never let myself want anything again.

I lay there stretched out straight and stiff in the dark, my fists clenched hard upon Nothing...

In the morning it had been like a nightmare that is not clearly remembered — that one wishes to forget. Though I hadn't hung up any stocking there was one hanging at the foot of my bed. A bag of popcorn, and a lead pencil, for me. They had done the best they could, now they realized that I knew about Christmas. But they needn't have thought they had to. I didn't want anything.

Family Christmas

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepans of potatoes, and, getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies; while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father, then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!"

"Here's Martha, Mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a great deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, Mother." "Well, never mind, so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"

"No, no! There's Father coming!" cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim! he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke, so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms; while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off to the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor; and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire. And while Bob, turning up his cuffs — as if, poor fellow!, they were capable of being made more shabby — compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds — a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course; and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board; and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried "Hurrah!"

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet everyone had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onions to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss

Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose —a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Halloa! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute, Mrs. Cratchit entered —flushed, but smiling proudly —with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half a quartern of ignited brandy and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half-a-one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass, two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears! God bless us!" Which all the family reechoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. After Twenty Years

The policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The impressiveness was habitual and not for show, for spectators were few. The time was barely 10 o'clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of rain in them had almost emptied the streets.

Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and artful movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye down the peaceful thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of the peace. The vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and then you might see the lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the majority of the doors belonged to business places that had long since been closed.

When about midway of a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed his walk. In the doorway of a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an unlighted cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man spoke up quickly.

"It's all right, officer," he said, reassuringly. "I'm just waiting for a friend. It's an appointment made twenty years ago. Sounds a little funny to you, doesn't it? Well, I'll explain if you'd like to make certain it's all straight. About that long ago there used to be a restaurant where this store stands — 'Big Joe' Brady's restaurant."

"Until five years ago," said the policeman. "It was torn down then."

The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his cigar. The light showed a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near his right eyebrow. His scarf pin was a large diamond, oddly set.

"Twenty years ago tonight," said the man, "I dined here at 'Big Joe' Brady's with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. He and I were raised here in New York, just like two brothers, together. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was to start for the West to make my fortune. You couldn't have dragged Jimmy out of New York; he thought it was the only place on earth. Well, we agreed that night that we would meet here again exactly twenty years from that date and time, no matter what our conditions might be or from what distance we might have to come. We figured that in twenty years each of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made, whatever they were going to be."

It sounds pretty interesting," said the policeman. "Rather a long time between meets, though, it seems to me. Haven't you heard from your friend since you left?"

"Well, yes, for a time we corresponded," said the other. "But after a year or two we lost track of each other. You see, the West is a pretty big proposition, and I kept hustling around over it pretty lively. But I know Jimmy will meet me here if he's alive, for he always was the truest, staunchest old chap in the world. He'll never forget. I came a thousand miles to stand in this door tonight, and it's worth it if my old partner turns up."

The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, the lids of it set with small diamonds.

"Three minutes to ten," he announced. "It was exactly ten o'clock when we parted here at the restaurant door."

"Did pretty well out West, didn't you?" asked the policeman.

"You bet! I hoped Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of plodder, though, good fellow as he was. I've had to compete with some of the sharpest wits going to get my pile. A man gets in a groove in New York. It takes the West to put a razor-edge on him."

The policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.

"I'll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to call time on him sharp?"

"I should say not!" said the other. "I'll give him half an hour at least. If Jimmy is alive on earth he'll be here by that time. So long, officer."

"Good-night, sir," said the policeman, passing on along his beat, trying doors as he went.

There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from its uncertain puffs into a steady blow. The few passers-by bustling about in that quarter hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars turned high and pocketed hands. And in the door of the hardware store the man who had come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain almost to absurdity, with the friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and waited.

About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a

long overcoat, with collar turned up to his ears, hurried across from the opposite side of the street. He went directly to the waiting man.

"Is that you, Bob?" he asked, doubtfully.

"Is that you. Jimmy Wells?" cried the man in the door. "Bless my heart!" exclaimed the new arrival, grasping both the other's hands with hiss own. "It's Bob, sure as fate.

I was certain I'd find you here if you were still in existence. Well, well! —twenty years is a long time. The old restaurant's gone, Bob; I wish it had lasted, so we could have had another dinner there. How has the West treated you, old man?"

"Bully; it has given me everything I asked it for. You've changed lots, Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall by two or three inches."

"Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty."

"Doing well in New York, Jimmy?"

"Moderately. I have a position in one of the city departments. Come on, Bob; we'll go around to a place I know of, and have a good long talk about old times."

The two men started up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West, his egotism enlarged by success, was beginning to outline the history of his career. The other, submerged in his overcoat, listened with interest.

At the corner stood a drug store, brilliant with electric lights. When they came into this glare each of them turned simultaneously to gaze upon the other's face.

The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.

"You're not Jimmy Wells," he snapped. "Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change a man's nose from a Roman to a pug."

"It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one," said the tall man. "You've been under arrest for ten minutes, 'Silky' Bob. Chicago thinks you may have dropped over our way and wires us she wants to have a chat with you. Going quietly, are you? That's sensible. Now, before we go on to the station here's a note I was asked to hand you. You may read it here at the window. It's from Patrolman Wells!" The man from the West unfolded the little piece of paper handed him. His hand was steady when he began to read, but it trembled a little by the time he had finished. The note was rather short.

Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. Somehow I couldn't do it myself, so I went around and got a plain-clothes man to do the job.

Jimmy

Detectives' Lives — Fact and Fantasy

Real policemen, both in Britain and the United States, hardly recognize any resemblance between their lives and what they see on TV —if they ever get home in time. There are similarities, of course, but the cops don't think much of them.

The first difference is that a policeman's real life revolves round the law. Most of his training is in criminal law. He has to know exactly what actions are crimes and what evidence can be used to prove them in court. He has to know nearly as much law as a professional lawyer, and what is more, he has to apply it on his feet, in the dark and rain, running down an alley after someone he wants to talk to.

Little of his time is spent in chatting to scantily-clad ladies or in dramatic confrontations with desperate criminals. He will spend most of his working life typing millions of words on thousands of forms about hundreds of sad, unimportant people who are guilty —or not —of stupid, petty crimes.

Most television crime drama is about finding the criminal: as soon as he's arrested, the story is over. In real life, finding criminals is seldom much of a problem. Except in very serious cases like murders and terrorist attacks —where failure to produce results reflects on the standing of the police — little effort is spent on searching. The police have an elaborate machinery which eventually shows up most wanted men.

Having made an arrest, a detective really starts to work. He has to prove his case in court and to do that he often has to gather a lot of different evidence. Much of this has to be given by people who don't want to get involved in a court case. So, as well as being overworked, a detective has to be out at all hours of the day and night interviewing his witnesses and persuading them, usually against their own best interests, to help him.

A third big difference between the drama detective and the real one is the unpleasant moral twilight in which the real one lives. Detectives are subject to two opposing pressures: first, as members of a police force they always have to behave with absolute legality; secondly, as expensive public servants they have to get results. They can hardly ever do both. Most of the time some of them have to break the rules in small ways.

If the detective has to deceive the world, the world often deceives him. Hardly anyone he meets tells him the truth. And this separation the detective feels between himself and the rest of the world is deepened by the simple-mindedness —as he sees it —of citizens, social workers, doctors, law-makers, and judges, who, instead of stamping out crime, punish the criminals less severely in the hope that this will make them reform. The result, detectives feel, is that nine-tenths of their work is re-catching people who should have stayed behind bars. This makes them rather cynical.

A Fable for Tomorrow

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the autumn mornings. Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wild flowers, delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and autumn people travelled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and

cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells and built their barns.

Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours.

There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example —where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

On the farms the hens brooded, but no chicks were hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs —the litters were small and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.

The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died.

In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and streams.

No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.

This town does not actually exist, but it might easily have a thousand counterparts in America or elsewhere in the world. I know of no community that has experienced all the misfortunes I describe. Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number of them. A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.

The Year 2000

It remains to be seen whether the reserves of raw materials would be sufficient to supply a world economy which would have grown by 500 per cent. South-East Asia alone would have an energy consumption five times greater than that of Western Europe in 1970. Incidentally, if the underdeveloped countries started using up petrol at the same rate as the industrialized areas, then world reserves would already be exhausted by 1985.

All this only goes to show just how important it is to set up a plan to conserve and divide up fairly natural resources on a worldwide scale.

This is a matter of life and death because world population is exploding at an incredible rate. By the middle of the next century population will expand every year by as much as it did in the first 1500 years after Christ. In the southern, poor parts of the globe, the figures are enough to make your hair stand on end. Even supposing that steps are taken to stabilize world population in the next fifty years, the number of inhabitants per square kilometer will increase by from 4 in the United States to 140 in South-East Asia. What can we do about it?

In the first hypothesis we do nothing. By the year 2000, the southern parts of the world would then have a population greater than the total world population today. Calcutta would have 60 million inhabitants. It's unthinkable.

Alternatively, we could start acting right now to bring births under control within fifteen years so that population levels off. Even then the population in the southern areas would not stop growing for seventy-five years. And the population would level off at something like twice today's figure.

Finally, we could wait ten to twenty years before taking action. If we waited ten years the population of the southern areas would stabilize at 3000 million. Even today the number of potential workers increases by 350,000 people per week. By the end of the century this figure will reach 750,000. In other words it will be necessary to find work for 40 million more people per year — not to speak of food!

What this means in practical terms we can scarcely imagine. But clearly if we do nothing, nature will solve the problem for us. But at what cost!

新编英语教程第三册第三版B翻译

Unit 1 在弗雷德看来，面试进行得很顺利。五天前他曾向一家小公司申请工作，现在那公司的一名董事正在对他进行面试。 在这之前弗雷德一直在当推销员。他现在想调工作并不是因为缺钱，而是因为作为一名推销员他几乎没有空闲的时间。 弗雷德在谈话前很担心，生怕头脑发昏说错话，但是很幸运他发现自己同这位董事的共同之处颇多。 显然这位董事很满意。正当弗雷德在想着自己很可能得到工作时，董事接着问他：“你愿意加班吗?” In Fred’s view, the interview was going very smoothly indeed. Five days before, he had applied for a job at a small business company and now he was being interviewed by one of its directors. Fred had been working as a salesman. He wanted to change his job not because he was short of money, but because as a salesman he could hardly enjoy any leisure at all. Fred had been worried that he might lose his head and say something silly, but fortunately he found that he had a lot in common with the director. It was clear that the director was quite satisfied. Fred was thinking that his chances of landing the job were favourable when the director proceeded to ask, “Do you mind working over time?” Unit 2 B.汉译英 汤姆一开始同父亲谈话就想直截了当地把自己的意思说出来。“爸爸，我作了一个重要的决定，我打算参军去（go into the services）。”父亲很吃惊，不赞同地看着他。“你不应该先得到学位吗？你总有机会服役的，在你……” “可是，爸爸，我今年无论如何会被征入伍的（be drafted）。”汤姆急着打断父亲说。“所以为什么不现在入伍呢（enlist）? 如果入伍了，我得到技术培训的机会就会更多些。要知道，那是很重要的。” “嗯……”父亲插嘴说，“你在大学里第一年学得不错，现在不是你离开学校的时候。” “爸爸，我大学一年级的成绩不很理想，我想我是赶不上其他同学的了。此外，我知道你多么不愿意背债（get into debt），要我成为你的负担，那么我永远不会觉得好受（feel right about）。” 听了这些，汤姆的父亲无言以对，但是他最终说了这么一句话：“我想也许你最好同你母亲谈一下。” As soon as Tom began his talk with his father, he wanted to gain his point directly. “I’ve made an important decision, Dad. I’m going into the services.” Tom’s father looked at him with an air of surprised disapproval. “Shouldn’t you get your degree first? You can always do your military service after …” “But Dad, I’ll be drafted this year anyway,” Tom interrupted

新编英语教程3第三版翻译答案解析

Unit 1 1. 他们都认为他成功的可能性很小。 They all believed that his chances of success were slim. 2. 我不知道她为何总带有一种闷闷不乐的神情。 I don’t know why she always has an air of sadness. 3. 等到所有同学都就座后，学生会主席才开始宣布野营的日程安排。After all students were seated, the president of the students’ union proceeded to announce the camping itinerary. 4. 胃是人体至关重要的器官，请善待之。 Please take good care of our stomach which is a vital organ of our human body. 5、他认为总经理如此重视那些日常琐事是荒唐的。 He considered it absurd for the general manager to attach so much importance to those routine trifles. 6. 她的研究涉及多种语言和文化，富有挑战性。 Her study was full of challenge, which was concerned with many languages and cultures. 7. 根据安排，全体工作人员依次值晚班。 As is scheduled, all staff should take turns to do late duty. 8. 想到要远离父母独自生活，她深感不安。 She felt upset at the thought of leaving her parents and having an independent living in a remote area.

新编英语教程6_答案_李观仪

练习册：We may regard “if only” as indicating the past and “next time” the future, we all know the most important time is “now”, as past things could not be changed and future is based on “now”． I. 1. The old man was an eminent psychiatrist and the author was a client of his. (famous and respected within a particular profession) 2. Refer to para. 1. To him, the session was just like “a flash of insight that leaves him a changed person not only changed, but changed for the better.” 3. The three speakers on the tape were all unhappy, and the two words they all used frequently in what they said were “if only.” What the old man wanted to point out to the author was that to keep saying “if only anything; on the contrary, it only kept the person facing the wring way—backward instead of forward. Thus it did more harm than good to the person who kept saying them. (See para. 15) 4. Shift the focus; substitute “next time” for “if only” 5. They point to entirely different mental directions; one is backward and negative, and the other forward and positive. 6. It is instructive and inspirational. II. 1. The most inspiring and gratifying fact of life is the unexpected spark of enlightenment that makes you different and a better person than before. 2. At last he walked over from the other side of the street, wrapped in his old-fashioned overcoat, his bald head covered by a shapeless felt hat. He looked like a dwarfish old man full of energy rather than a well-known psychiatrist. 3. The next speaker on the tape was a woman who had remained single because she thought she was obliged to take care of her mother who was a widow. She still remembered and told others miserably about all the chances of marriage she had missed. 4. Eventually, if you form a habit of say ing “if only”, the phrase can really turn to an obstruction, providing you with an excuse for giving up trying anything at all. 5. …you are always thinking of the past, regretting and lamenting. You did not look forward to what you can do in the future at all. 6. The Old Man said to me trickily, using the phrase “if only” on purpose, “If only we?d got here ten we?d have caught the cab.” I laughed and understood what he meant. So I followed his advice and said, I?ll run faster”． III. 1. The whole plan fell through for want of fund. 2. Newton is acknowledged as one of the world?s most eminent scientists. 3. He calculates the cost of production with invariable accuracy. 4. The spokesman of the corporation was berated for his irresponsible words. 5. The young clerk from the commercial bank LANGUAGE WORK

大学英语综合教程3第三版答案

大学英语综合教程3第三版答案

大学英语综合教程3第三版答案 【篇一：新标准大学英语综合教程3答案(全版)】 >unit1 active reading(1) 4. b c c d c a 5.productive attendance resistance ambitious acceptance script impressive 6.attendance ambitious productive impressive resistance script acceptance 7.mortgage deck surf coastal;defy lengthy 8.b a b b b a b b active reading(2) 4.triple cemetery rear biography cram budding finite elapse 5.elapsed;cemetery rear;crammed triple budding;biography finite 6.a b a a b b a a 7.a b b a a b b b a language in use 6.(1)我们都觉得在校时间不多了，以后再也不会有这样的学习机会了，所以都下定决心不再虚度光阴。当然，下一年四五月份的期末考试最为重要。我们谁都不想考全班倒数第一，那也太丢人了，因此同学们之间的竞争压力特别大。以前每天下午5点以后，图书馆就空无

一人了，现在却要等到天快亮时才会有空座，小伙子们熬夜熬出了眼袋，他们脸色苍白，睡眼惺忪，却很自豪，好像这些都是表彰他们勤奋好学的奖章。 （2）明天行吗？明天只是个谎言；根本就没有什么明天，只有一张我们常常无法兑现的期票。明天甚至压根儿就不存在。你早上醒来时又是另一个今天了，同样的规则又可以全部套用。明天只是现在的另一种说法，是一块空地，除非我们开始在那里播种，否则它永远都是空地。你的时间会流逝（时间就在我们说话的当下滴答滴答地走着，每分钟顺时针走60秒，如果你不能很好地利用它，它就会走得更快些），而你没有取得任何成就来证明它的存在，唯独留下遗憾，留下一面后视镜，上面写满了“本可以做”“本应该做”“本来会做”的事情。 7.(1)students differ about whether they should have their future mapped out when they are still at university .some think they should have a definite goal and detailed plan, so as to brace themselves for any challenges, whereas some others think they don’t have to think much about the future , because future is full of uncertainties. （2）after a very careful check-up ,the scientist was told he had got a fatal disease .although he knew that his life was ticking away ,instead of complaining about the fate ,the scientist decided to make the best of the remaining days ,and speed up the research project he and his colleagues initiated ,and have a shot at completing it ahead of schedule. unit2 active reading 5.definite perpetual whirl blaze giggle prompt tumble 6.prompted definite whirl perpetual blazing giggling tumbled 7.blinked barren tag torture resemblance napkin

新编英语教程5(第三版)

1) The reason why little girl like Barbie very much is that she looks like real people and can be dressed up in a perfect way. 2) Man-made objects, though out-numbered by natural objects, play a more and more important role in people’s life. 3)The number of man-made object is increasing steeply, compared with the number of natural objects as well as its actual number. 4) The little girl of today would gladly use their old Barbie to exchange the new version of Barbie whereas their mother or grandmother would be reluctant to throw away their dolls until they fall-apart simply, because they are too old nothing could be more obvious than the difference between them. 5)The societies and people that are used to poverty reject the practice of using one product only for once or a short time and then replace it by a new one. 6) It is meaning that less for a man who is fairy old to say that he wants to develop a hobby in this or that form. 7)It is sensible that you further develop the hobby; you already have instead of trying to cultivate a new one. 8)Taking up a hobby and living a more regularized way of life are the most effective way to save them from their boredom. 9)The long hour’s work in the office or factory provides these people with the money so they can live their lives and gives them a strong desire for the simplest pleasure. 10)In fact, it is highly likely that those people who take their work as their pleasure are need to divert their effort from work from time to time urgently. 11)The ability to do the right thing at the right time is essential to a good leader. 12) A leader must be good at exercising his authority (this is a quality that a leader must have) and be able to demonstrate to the people that he does. 13) A leader should find out what the people want to do or have, and guide them to achieve it. 14) If we are not powerful, determined and brave, we can’t except to f ind a good leader, no matter how skilled we are in shopping images, we can’t make him to be what he is not, he is only a representative of all of us. 15) John Dewey has said seriously that the degree that someone’s behavior can influence the custom is the same as the degree that his body talk can influence his mother tongue. 16)The result from a serious study of the custom which is not influence by the outside shows that what Dewey said is just an objective description of the fact. 17) If we still think that our culture is superior to those of the people who we regard as uncivilized, underdeveloped or irreligious, the study anthropology must be meaningless. 18)W e must realized that all the beliefs are based on the same thing, the intangible and should be treated equally along with our own. 19)I believe that people in the society high above me are selfless, pure, noble and very intelligent. 20)But it is difficult for a man of the working class to improve his social status, especially when he was full of objectives and imaginations 21)It is physically strong, and they profited a lot by exploiting my strength, but I only lived a poor life. 22)He was no longer strong enough to make money by selling his strength and had nothing left to him, he had no other choice, but to slide down to the bottom of the society and die there in misery. 23) After 100 years, the black people is still suffering in the isolated part of American society, and he feels like an outcast in his own country. 24) We can see very clearly that as far as the black people are concerned, America didn’t fulfill its promise. 25) We are here to demand the fulfillment of the promises which can guarantee us our freedom and justice. 26)This is not the right time to calm down and adopt gradualism, waiting patiently for a solution.

(完整版)《新编英语教程》第3册的课文

《新编英语教程》（修订版）第三册 Unit 1[见教材P1] My First Job 我的第一份工作 Robert Best 罗伯特.贝斯特 ①While I was waiting to enter university, I saw ②Being very short of money and wanting to do something useful, I applied, fearing that my chances of landing the job were slim. ①那年，我考上了大学，还没有入校时，在本地一家报纸上看到一所学校发布广告，招聘一名教师。②这所学校位于伦敦郊区，距离我住的地方大约[有]十英里。③当时因为急需用钱，又想做些有意义的事情，于是我就提出了申请。④但是同时，我又担心，既没有学位又没有教学经验，所以获得这个职位的可能性非常小。 ①However, three days later a letter arrived, summoning me to Croydon for an interview. ②It proved an awkward journey: a train to Croydon station;a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least a quarter of a mile. ③As a result I arrived on a hot June morning too depressed to feel nervous. ①然而，三天以后来信了，通知我到Croydon参加面试。②路很不好走，先坐火车到Croydon车站，再坐十分钟的公交车，最后步行至少0.25英里才到达目的地。③那可是六月天的上午，天气很热，我非常沮丧，也非常紧张，简直都崩溃了。 ①and ②The front garden was a gravel square;

新编英语教程(第三版)unit6练习册答案

Reference for Unit 6 workbook exercises Blank Filling A. 1.changed, promising https://www.sodocs.net/doc/6b9927833.html,ing, qualified 3.determined 4.spoken, leading, surprising 5.frightening 6.demanding 7.pleased, soiled https://www.sodocs.net/doc/6b9927833.html,plicated 9.interested, exciting, soaked 10.tiring, tired B. 1.giving 2.Fascinated, rising / rise 3.singing, to do, making

4.keeping, playing, to be, to see, climbing 5.opening 6.to take, shopping, doing, to do 7.to have remembered, to tell, preparing, to do 8.to watch, to read, reading, watching 9.missing, to tell 10.to be taken 11.swimming, cleaning, to do 12.waiting, seeing, missing, to find, to be C. 1.for 2.to 3.of 4.on 5.read 6.across 7.about / for 8.in 9.until / till 10.opinion 11.by 12.keep 13.excellent 14.time 15.pleasure 16.from 17.yourself 18.in 19.filled 20.trains

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