THE BOY NEXT DOOR by J. London

Mr. Know-All by W.S. Maugham

Once I was going by ship from San-Francisco to Yokohama. I shared my cabin with a man called Mr. Kelada. He was short and of a sturdy build, cleanshaven and dark-skinned, with a hooked nose and very large liquid eyes. His long black hair was curly. And though he introduced himself as an Englishman I felt sure that he was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England. Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures and politics. He was familiar. Though I was a total stranger to him he used no such formality as to put mister before my name when he addressed me. I didn't like Mr. Kelada. I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I couldn't walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was glad to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face.

Mr. Kelada was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best-hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-A11, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at meal times that he was most intolerable. He knew everything better than anybody else and you couldn't disagree with him. He would not drop a subject till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him.

We were four at the table: the doctor, I, Mr. Kelada and Mr. Ramsay.

Ramsay was in the American Consular Service, and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife, who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was a, very pretty little thing with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. She was dressed always very simply, but she knew how to wear her clothes.

One evening at dinner the conversation by chancedrifted to the subject of pearls. There was some argu- ment between Mr. Kelada and Ramsay about the value of culture and real pearls. I did not believe Ramsay knew anything about the subject at all. At last Mr. Kelada got furious and shouted: "Well, I know what I am talking about. I'm going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I'm in the trade. I know the best pearls in the world, and what l don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing."

Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada had never told anyone what his business was.

Ramsay leaned forward.

"That's a pretty chain, isn't it?" he asked pointing to the chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore.

"I noticed it at once," answered Mr. Kelada. "Those are pearls all right."

"I didn't buy it myself, of course," said Ramsay. "I wonder how much you think it cost."

"Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fif th Avenue anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it."

Ramsay smiled. "You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string the day bef ore we left New York for eighteen dollars. I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation."

"Done."

"But how can it be proved?" Mrs. Ramsay asked.

"Let me look at the chain and if it's imitation I'll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars," said Mr. Kelada.

The chain was handed to Mr. Kelada. He took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his face. He was about to speak. Suddenly he saw Mrs. Ramsay's face. It was so white that she looked as if she were about to faint'. She was staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. Mr. Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself. "I was mistaken," he said. "It's a very good imitation." He took a hundred-dollar note out of his pocket and handed it to Ramsay without a word. "Perhaps that'll teach you a lesson," said Ramsay as he took the note. I noticed that Mr. Kelada's hands were trembling.

The story spread over the ship. It was a fine joke that Mr. Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs. Ramsay went to her cabin with a headache.

Next morning I got up and began to shave. Suddenly I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Mr. Kelada. I handed it to him. He took out of the envelope a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me and reddened.

"Were the pearls real?" I asked.

"If I had a pretty little wif e I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe," said he.

Unit 15

The TV Blackout by Art Buchwald

A week ago Sunday New York city had a blackout and all nine television stations in the area went out for several hours. This created tremendous crises in families all over New York and proved that TV plays a much greater role in people's lives than anyone can imagine.

For example, when the TV went off in the Bufkins's house panic set in. First Bufkins thought it was his set in the living-room, so he rushed into his bedroom and turned on that set. Nothing. The phone rang, and Mrs. Bufkins heard her sister in Manhattan tell her that there was a blackout.

She hung up and said to her husband, "It isn't your set. Something's happened to the top of the Empire State Building."

Bufkins looked at her and said, "Who are you?"

"I'm your wife, Edith."

"Oh," Bufkins said. "Then I suppose those kids' in there are mine."

"That's right," Mrs. Bufkins said. "If you ever got out of that armchair in front of the TV set you'd know who we are."

"Oh! they've really grown," Bufkins said, looking at his son and daughter. "How old are they now?"

"Thirteen and fourteen," Mrs. Bufkins replied.

"Hi, kids!"

"Who's he?' Bufkins's son, Henry, asked.

"It's your father," Mrs. Bufkins said.

"I'm pleased to meet you," Bufkins's daughter,Mary, said shyly.

There was silence all around.

"Look," said Bufkins finally. "I know I haven't been

a good f ather but now that the TV's out I'd like to know you better."

"How?" asked Henry.

"Well, let's just talk," Bufkins said. "That's the best

way to get to know each other."

"What do you want to talk about?" Mary asked.

"Well, to begin with, what school do you go to?"

"We go to High School," Henry said.

"So you're both in high school!" There was a dead silence.

"What do you do?" Mary asked.

'abI m an accountant, ' Bufkins said.

"I thought you were a car salesman," Mrs. Bufkins said in surprise.

"That was two years ago. Didn't I tell you I changed jobs?" Bufkins said.

"No, you didn't. You haven't told me anything for two years."

"I'm doing quite well too," Bufkins said.

"Then why am I working in a department store?"

Mrs. Bufkins demanded.

"Oh, are you still working in a department store? If I had known that, I would have told you could quit last year. You should have mentioned it," Bufkins said.

There was more dead silence.

Finally Henry said, "Hey, you want to hear me play the guitar?"

"You know how to play the guitar? Say, didn't I have a daughter who played the guitar?"

"That was Susie," Mrs. Bufkins said.

"Where is she?"

"She got married a year ago, just about the time you were watching the World Series."

"You know," Bufkins said, very pleased. "I hope they don't fix the antenna for another couple hours.There's nothing better than a blackout for a man who really wants to know his family."

NOTES:

blackout — a period of complete darkness (when all the electric lights go out) due to the power failure.

kids (Am.) — children

an accountant — 6yxraїvep

World Series — baseball contest in America

Unit 21

The Happy Man by W.S. Maugham

It is a dangerous thing to order the lives of others and I have often wondered at the self-confidence of politicians, reformers and such like who are prepared to force upon their f ellows measures that must alter their manners, habits and points of view. I have always hesitated to give advice, for how can one advise another how to act unless one knows that other as well as one knows oneself? Heaven knows, I know little enough of myself: I know nothing of others. We can only guess at the thoughts and emotions of our neighbours. And life, unfortunately, is something that you can lead but once; and who am I that I should tell this one and that how he should lead it?

But once I knew that I advised well.

I was a young man and I lived in a modest apartment in London near Victoria Station. Late one afternoon, when I was beginning to think that I had worked enough for that day, I heard a ring at the bell. I opened the door to a total stranger. He asked me my name; I told him. He asked if he might come in.

“Certainly”.

I led him into my sitting-room and begged to sit down. He seemed a trifle embarrassed. I offered him a cigarette and he had some difficulty in lighting it.

“I hope you don't mind my coming to see you like this”, he said, “My name is Stephens and I am a doctor. You're in the medical, I believe?”

“Yes, but I don't practise”.

“No, I know. I've just read a book of yours about Spain and I wanted to ask you about it”.

“It's not a very good book, I'm afraid”.

“The fact remains that you know something about Spain and there's no one else I know who does. And I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some inf ormation”.

“I shall be very glad”.

He was silent for a moment. He reached out for his hat and holding it in one hand absent-mindedly stroked it with the other.

“I hope you won't think it very odd for a perfect stranger to talk to you like this”. He gave an apologetic laugh. “I'm not going to tell you the story of my life”.

When people say this to me I always know that it is precisely what they are going to do. I do not mind. In fact I rather like it.

“I was brought up by two old aunts. I've never been anywhere. I've never done anything.   I've been married for six years. I have no children. I'm a medical officer at the Camberwell Infirmary. I can't bear it anymore”.

There was something very striking in the short, sharp sentences he used. I looked at him with curiosity. He was a little man, thickset and stout, of thirty perhaps, with a round red face from which shone small, dark and very bright eyes. His black hair was cropped close to a bullet-shaped head. He was dressed in a blue suit a good deal the worse for wear. It was baggy at the knees and the pockets bulged untidily.

“You know what the duties are of a medical officer in an infirmary. One day is pretty much like another. And that's all I've got to look forward to for the rest of my life. Do you think it's worth it?”

“It's a means of livelihood”, I answered.

“Yes, I know. The money's pretty good”.

“I don't exactly know why you've come to me”.

“Well, I wanted to know whether you thought there would be any chance for an English doctor in Spain?”

“Why Spain?”

“I don't know, I just have a fancy for it”.

“It's not like Carmen, you know”, I smiled.

“But there's sunshine there, and there's good wine, and there's colour, and there's air you can breathe. Let me say what I have to say straight out. I heard by accident that there was no English doctor in Seville. Do you think I could earn a living there? Is it madness to give up a good safe job for an uncertainty?”

“What does your wife think about it?”

“She's willing”.

“It's a great risk”.

“I know. But if you say take it, I will: if you say stay where you are, I'll stay”.

He was looking at me with those bright dark eyes of his and I knew that he meant what he said. I reflected for a moment.

“Your whole future is concerned: you must decide for yourself. But this I can tell you: if you don't want money but are content to earn just enough to keep body and soul together, then go. For you will lead a wonderful life”.

He left me, I thought about him for a day or two, and then forgot. The episode passed completely from my memory.

Many years later, fifteen at least, I happened to be in Seville and having some trifling indisposition asked the hotel porter whether there was an English doctor in the town. He said there was and gave me the address. I took a cab and as I drove up to the house a little fat man came out of it. He hesitated, when he caught sight of me.

“Have you come to see me?” he said. “I'm the English doctor”.

I explained my matter and he asked me to come in. He lived in an ordinary Spanish house, and his consulting room was littered with papers, books, medical appliances and lumber. We did our business and then I asked the doctor what his fee was. He shook his head and smiled.

“There's no fee”.

“Why on earth not?”

“Don't you remember me? Why, I'm here because of something you said to me. You changed my whole life for me. I'm Stephens”.

I had not the least notion what he was talking about. He reminded me of our interview, he repeated to me what we had said, and gradually, out of the night, a dim recollection of the incident came back to me.

“I was wondering if I'd ever see you again”, he said, “I was wondering if ever I'd have a chance of thanking you for all you've done for me”.

“It's been a success then?”

I looked at him. He was very fat now and bald, but his eyes twinkled gaily and his fleshy, red face bore an expression of perfect good humour. The clothes he wore, terribly shabby they were, had been made obviously by a Spanish tailor and his hat was the wide brimmed sombrero of the Spaniard. He looked to me as though he knew a good bottle of wine when he saw it. He had an entirely sympathetic appearance. “You might have hesitated to let him remove your appendix”, but you could not have imagined a more delightful creature to drink a glass of wine with.

“Surely you were married?” I said.

“Yes. My wife didn't like Spain, she went back to Camberwell, she was more at home there”.

“Oh, I'm sorry for that”.

His black eyes flashed a smile.

“Life is full of compensations”, he murmured.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a Spanish woman, no longer in her first youth, but still beautiful, appeared at the door. She spoke to him in Spanish, and I could not fail to feel that she was the mistress of the house.

As he stood at the door to let me out he said to me:

“You told me when last I saw you that if I came here I should earn just enough money to keep body and soul together, but that I should lead a wonderful life. Well, I want to tell you that you were right. Poor I have been and poor I shall always be, but by heaven I've enjoyed myself. I wouldn't exchange the life I've had with that of any king in the world”.

NOTES:

be in the medical — work in the field of medicine

remove appendix — sbipeaavb anrxeїprcqm

Unit 25

Wager with Destiny

E.E. Gatti

Anderson was alone in camp when the native boy brought him Barton's book.

"The boss has dropped it on the trail," the boy said. Anderson knew the book well, a cheap, shabby little notebook. He had heard Barton say a dozen times that he'd bought it with the first dime he'd earned, and every financial transaction he'd made since was entered in that book.

The camp was inside a mountain jungle in the Kuvi region of the Congo. And the heavy clouds overhead made Anderson feel gloomy. He was not well, and he was nervous. And he was unreasonably disturbed about the cage.

He had come on this hunting safari as Barton's guest. Barton, now, was one of the richest men in America; a hard man, who was proud of his power. It was surprising, therefore, to Anderson, that after fifteen years of silence, Barton had looked him up, renewed their boyhood friendship and made him this invitation. Anderson was grateful for it; for he, himself, was penniless and a failure.

Barton had made a bet at his club that he could capture alive a full-grown gorilla and bring it back to America. Hence the safari. And hence the portable steel cage with its automatic door.

Anderson couldn't bear to think of a great gorilla, unable to use his magnificent strength, shut up in the cage. But Anderson, of course, was sensitive about steel bars.

He did not mean to look in Barton's book. It had fallen into the mud, and Anderson only wanted to clean it.

But as he turned the pages shaking out the dried mud, his eyes fell upon a date — April 20, 1923. That was the date that had been seared into Anderson's mind with a red-hot iron, and mechanically he read the entry. Then he opened his mouth and the air swam around him.

“April 20, 1923, received $50,000” the book stated. Nothing more than that. And on April 20, 1923, he, Anderson, an innocent man, a young accountant in the same firm where Barton was just beginning his career, had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison for embezzlement' of $50,000.

Anderson was as shaken as if the very ground had opened under his feet. Memories rushed back to him. The books' had been tampered' with, all right. But they had never been able to locate the money.

And all the time it was Barton who had stolen the money; had used it as the cornerstone4 of his vast suc- cess; had noted it down, laconically, in his little book!

"But why did he bring me here?" Anderson asked himself. His body was burning with heat, and his head was heavy; he felt the first sign of malaria. And his heart was filled with the terrible, bitter rage of one betrayed. "Does he think I suspect him? Does he plan to kill me now?"

And then the reason came, cold and clear. There was a power of justice in life, and that power had made Barton bring him, so that he, Anderson, could take the law in his own hands, and the guilty would be punished instead of the innocent.

At once his mind was made up, and he had never known his thinking to be so clear and direct. He would kill Barton while he slept — they shared the same tent. And he would go to bed now and pretend sleeping, so that he would not have to speak to Barton.

It was already late in the afternoon. Anderson uneasily walked into the tent. But he did not have to play a role, for as soon as he touched the bed he fell into the heavy sleep of increasing malaria.

It was bright moonlight outside the tent when he awoke. He could hear Barton's regular, rhythmic breathing in the darkness near him. He dressed quickly and noiselessly, turned the safety catch of his revolver and bent above Barton. But a sudden shock of revulsion came over him.

He put the revolver down carefully on the table near his bed. Then he was outside the tent and trying to run, to get away from that accusing voice that cried within him, again and again, "Murderer!"

He did not know where he was until his hand touched something cold and hard — a steel bar of the cage. God, it knew steel bars, that hand. He closed his eyes against the thought, and took a few steps forward. Then a noise behind him made him turn around. The steel door of the cage had dropped! He had walked into the cage, closing the automatic door!

"Where you should be," cried the accusing voice, “where murderers ought to be, in a cage!”

Anderson sobbed hysterically. Then he fell and the flames of his fever licked him.

Anderson opened his eyes with great effort, and saw above him the face of the friendly planter who lived some miles from the camp.

"You'll be all right now," the man said, "the fever's over. But how did you get into the cage?"

Anderson tried to explain, but he didn't have strength enough to speak. He knew where he was, in a bed in the planter's house. And gradually he became aware that there was another white man in the room, one he had never seen before.

"He was lucky," the planter was saying to this strange man. "If he hadn't been safe in that cage, the gorillas would have got him as they did Barton and those pygmies."

"Do you feel able to talk now?" the stranger asked "I expect you're wondering who I am. I am Barton's lawyer, I flew down from New York to take charge of Barton's affairs as soon as I got the news. You've been delirious three weeks, you know."

The lawyer sat down beside Anderson's bed. “As you know, my late client was a superstitious man, and a great gambler”, he said. “You two, as young men, started your careers together. And on the very day that he received the capital that gave him his chance, you were sentenced to prison on a charge of embezzling the identical' sum — fifty thousand dollars. Barton took the coincidence as an act of fate”.

“He made a kind of bet with fate," the lawyer went on. "If he were allowed to succeed, he promised to do something good for you. And he kept the bet, he remembered you in his will'. I thought you'd like to know why”.

"I know why all right," said Anderson. A little word called "conscience'", he thought.

"I happened to know all about it," the lawyer added, "Because I was the executor of the will of Barton's aunt. She hadn't liked hi'm, and he'd expected nothing from her. So that fifty thousand was like money falling from the skies."

NOTES:

embezzlement — pacvpav

books — 6yxraavepcxxe

tamper — noppezbrsav

cornerstone — OCHOBR

gambler — erpoz

identical — vazaa me

fate — cypb6a

will — saseїasee

conscience — coaeCTb

Unit 19

NO STORY by O. Henry

I was doing work on a newspaper.

One day Tripp came in and leaned on my table.

Tripp was something in the mechanical department. He was about twenty-five and looked forty. Half of his face was covered with short, curly red whiskers that looked like a door-mat. He was pale and unhealthy and miserable and was always borrowing sums of money from twenty-five cents to a dollar. One dollar was his limit. When he leaned on my table he held one hand with the other to keep both from shaking. Whisky.

"Well, Tripp," said I, looking up at him rather impatiently, "how goes it?" He was looking more miserable than I had ever seen him.

"Have you got a dollar?" asked Tripp looking at me with his dog-like eves.

That day I had managed to get five dollars for my Sunday story. "I have," said I; and again I said, "I have," more loudly, "and four besides. And I had hard work getting them. And I need them all."

"I don't want to borrow any," said Tripp, "I thought you'd like to get a good story. I've got a really fine one for you. It'll probably cost you a dollar or two to get the stuff. I don't want anything out of it myself."

"What is the story?" I asked.

"It's girl. A beauty. She has lived all her life on Long Island and never saw New York City before. I ran against her on Thirty-fourth Street. She stopped me on the street and asked me where she could find George Brown. Asked me where she could find George Brown in New York City! What do you think of that?! I talked to her. It's like this. Some years ago George set off for New York to make his fortune. He did not reappear. Now there's a young farmer named Dodd she's going to marry next week. But Ada — her name's Ada Lowery — couldn't forget George, so this morning she saddled a horse and rode eight miles to the railway station to catch the 6.45 a.m. train. She came to the city to look for George. She must have thought the first person she inquired of would tell her where her George was! You ought to see her! What could I do? She had paid her last cent f or her railroad ticket. I couldn't leave her in the street, could I? I took her to a boarding-house. She has to pay a dollar to the landlady. That's the price per day."

"That's no story," said I. "Every ferry-boat brings or takes away girls from Long Island."

Tripp looked disappointed. "Can't you see what an amazing story it would make? You ought to get fifteen dollars for it. And it'll cost you only four, so you'll make a profit of eleven dollars."

"How will it cost me four dollars?" I asked suspiciously.

"One dollar to the landlady and two dollars to pay the girl's fare back home."

"And the fourth?" I inquired.

"One dollar to me," said Tripp. "Don't you see," he insisted, "that the girl has got to get back home today?"

And then I began to feel what is known as the sense of duty. In a kind of cold anger I put on my coat and hat. But I swore to myself that Tripp would not get the dollar.

Tripp took me in a street-car to the boarding-house. I paid the fares.

In a dim parlour a girl sat crying quietly and eating candy out of a paper bag. She was a real beauty. Crying only made her eyes brighter.

"My friend, Mr. Chalmers. He is a reporter," said Tripp "and he will tell you, Miss Lowery, what's best to do."

I felt ashamed of being introduced as Tripp's friend in the presence of such beauty. "Why — er — Miss Lowery," I began feeling terribly awkward, "will you tell me the circumstances of the case?"

"Oh," said Miss Lowery, "there aren't any circumstances, really. You see, everything is fixed for me to marry Hiram Dodd next Thursday. He's got one of the best f arms on the Island. But last night I got to thinking about G — George —"

"You see, I can't help it. George and I loved each other since we were children. Four years go he went to the city. He said he was going to be a policeman of a railroad president or something. And then he was coming back for me. But I never heard from him any more. And I — I — liked him."

"Now, Miss Lowery," broke in Tripp, "you like this young man, Dodd, don't you? He's all right, and good to you, isn't he?"

"Of course I like him. And of course he's good to me. He's promised me an automobile and a motorboat. But somehow I couldn't help thinking about George. Something must have happened to him or he would have written. On the day he left, he got a hammer and a chisel and cut a cent into two pieces. I took one piece and he took the other, and we promised to be true to each other and always keep the pieces till we saw each other again. I've got mine at home. I guess I was silly to come here. I never realised what a big place it is."

Tripp broke in with an awkward little laugh. "Oh, the boys from the country forget a lot when they come to the city. He may have met another girl or something. You go back home, and you'll be all right."

In the end we persuaded Miss Lowery to go back home. The three of us then hurried to the ferry, and there I f ound the price of the ticket to be but a dollar and eighty cents. I bought one, and a red, red rose with the twenty cents for Miss Lowery. We saw her aboard her ferry-boat and stood watching her wave her handkerchief at us. And then Tripp and I f aced each other.

"Can't you get a story out of it?" he asked. "Some sort of a story?"

"Not a line," said I.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. There was disappointment in his tone. Tripp unbuttoned his shabby coat to reach for something that had once been a handkerchief. As he did so I saw something shining on his cheap watch-chain. It was the half of a silver cent that had been cut in halves with a chisel.

"What?!" I exclaimed looking at him in amazement.

"Oh yes," he replied. "George Brown, or Tripp. What's the use?"

Unit 2

A DOG AND THREE DOLLARS by M. Twain

I have always believed that a man must be honest. "Never ask for money you have not earned", I always said.

Now I shall tell you a story which will show you how honest I have always been all my life.

A few days ago at my friend's house I met General Miles. General Miles was a nice man and we became great friends very quickly.

"Did you live in Washington in 1867?" the general asked me.

"Yes, I did," I answered.

"How could it happen that we did not meet then?" said General Miles.

"General", said I. "We could not meet then. You forget that you were already a great general then, and I was a poor young writer whom nobody knew and whose books nobody read. You do not remember me, I thought, but we met once in Washington at that time."

I remember it very well. I was poor then and very often I did not have money even for my bread. I had a friend. He was a poor writer too. We lived together. We did everything together: worked, read books, went for walks together. And when we were hungry, we were both hungry. Once we were in need of three dollars. I don't remember why we needed these three dollars so much, but I remember well that we had to have the money by the evening.

"We must get these three dollars," said my friend. "I shall try to get the money, but you must also try."

I went out of the house, but I did not know where to go and how to get the three dollars. For an hour I was walking along the streets of Washington and was very tired. At last I came to a big hotel. "I shall go in and have a rest," I thought.

I went into the hall of the hotel and sat down on a sofa. I was sitting there when a beautiful small dog ran into the hall. It was looking for somebody. The dog was nice and I had nothing to do, so I called it and began to play with it.

I was playing with the dog, when a man came into the hall. He wore a beautiful uniform and I knew at once that he was General Miles. I knew him by his pictures in the newspapers. "What a beautiful dog!" said he. "Is it your dog?"

I did not have time to answer him when he said, "Do you want to sell it?"

"Three dollars", I answered at once.

"Three dollars?" he asked. "But that is very little. I can give you fifty dollars for it."

"No, no. I only want three dollars."

"Well, it is your dog. If you want three dollars for it, I shall be glad to buy your dog."

General Miles paid me three dollars, took the dog and went up to his room.

Ten minutes later an old man came into the hall. He looked round the hall. I could see that he was looking for something.

"Are you looking for a dog, sir?" I asked.

"Oh, yes! Have you seen it?" said the man.

"Your dog was here a few minutes ago and I saw how it went away with a man," I said. "If you want, I shall try to find it for you."

The man was very happy and asked me to help him.

"I shall be glad to help you, but it will take some of my time and..."

"I am ready to pay you for your time," cried the man. "How much do you want for it?"

"Three dollars," answered I.

"Three dollars?" said the man. "But it is a very good dog. I shall pay you ten dollars if you find it for me."

"No sir, I want three dollars and not a dollar more," said I.

Then I went up to General Miles's room. The General was playing with his new dog." I came here to take the dog back", said I.

"But it is not your dog now — I have bought it. I have paid you three dollars for it," said the General.

"I shall give you back your three dollars, but I must take the dog back", answered I. "But you have sold it to me, it is my dog now."

"I could not sell it to you, sir, because it was not my dog."

"Still you have sold it to me for three dollars." "How could I sell it to you when it was not my dog? You asked me how much I wanted for the dog, and I said that I wanted three dollars. But I never told you that it was my dog."

General Miles was very angry now.

"Give me back my three dollars and take the

dog," he shouted. When I brought the dog back to its master, he was very happy and paid me three dollars with joy. I was happy too because I had the money, and I felt I earned it.

Now you can see why I say that honesty is the best policy and that a man must never take anything that he has not earned.

Unit 3

A DAY’S WAIT by E. Hemingway

He came into the room to shut the windows while me were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.

"What's the matter, Schatz?"

"I've got a headache".

"You better go back to bed".

"No, I am all right".

"You go to bed. I'll see you when I'm dressed".

But when I came downstairs he was dressed, sitting by the fire, looking a very sick and miserable boy of nine years. When I put my hand on his forehead I knew he had a fever.

"You go up to bed," said, "you are sick".

"I am all right", he said.

When the doctor came he took the boy's temperature.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"One hundred and two."

Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different coloured capsules with instructions for giving them. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic of influenza and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia.

Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.

"Do you want me to read to you?"

"All right. If you want to," said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.

I read about pirates from Howard Pyle's "Book of Pirates", but I could see he was not following what I was reading.

"How do you feel, Schatz?" I asked him.

"Just the same, so far," he said.

I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed.

"Why, don't you try to go to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine."

"I'd rather stay awake."

After a while he said to me. "You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you."

"It doesn't bother me."

"No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you."

I thought perhaps he was a little light-headed and af ter giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out for a while…

At the house they said the boy had refused to let any one come into the room.

"You can't come in," he said. "You mustn't get what I have." I went up to him and found him in exactly the same position I had left him, white-faced, but with the tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.

I took his temperature.

"What is it?"

"Something like a hundred," I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.

"It was a hundred and two," he said.

"Who said so? Your temperature is all right," I said. "It's nothing to worry about."

"I don't worry," he said, "but I can't keep from thinking."

"Don't think," I said. "Just take it easy."

"I'm taking it easy," he said and looked straight ahead.

He was evidently holding tight onto himself about something.

"Take this with water."

"Do you think it will do any good?"

"Of course, it will."

I sat down and opened the "Pirate" book and commenced to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.

"About what time do you think I'm going to die?" he asked.

"What?"

"About how long will it be before I die?"

"You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two."

"People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk."

"I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two."

He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.

"You poor Schatz," I said. "It's like miles and kilometres. You aren't going to die. That's a different thermometre. On that thermometre thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," I said. "It's like miles and kilometres. You know, like how many kilometres we make when we do seventy miles in the car?"

"Oh," he said.

But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day he was very slack and cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.

NOTES:

Schatz (нем.) — дорогой

102 градусов по Фаренгейту = 38,9 градусов по Цельсию

so far - пока

Part I

Mr. Shelby had a large plantation and many slaves in the South of America. He never had enough money. He borrowed large sums from a man named Haley, whose business was to buy and sell slaves. Mr. Shelby could not pay the money back, and Haley said be would take Shelby's house or some slaves. Mr. Shelby decided to sell Tom, who helped him to look after the farm.

"Tom is a good man," said Mr. Shelby; "he helps me on the farm and I trust him."

"Well, I'll take your Tom if you add a boy or a girl to him," answered Haley.

"I don't think I have a boy or a girl that I could sell. If I could pay the money back I wouldn't sell slaves at all."

Here the door opened and a small Negro boy, between four and five years of age, entered the room. Mr. Shelby gave him some fruit and said, "Now, Harry, show this gentleman how you can dance and sing." The boy began to sing one of the most popular Negro songs in a clear voice.

"Bravo!" said Haley, throwing the boy a piece of an orange.

"Now, boy, walk like an old man!" said Mr. Shelby. The boy began walking about the room, his master's stick in his hand, in imitation of an old man.

"Hurrah! Bravo! What a boy!" said Haley. "Shelby, I like that boy, if you add him, the business is done." At this moment the door opened and a young Negro woman about twenty-five entered the room. You could tell immediately, that she was the mother of the boy. The same beautiful dark eyes and silky black hair.

"Well, Elisa?" asked her master as she stopped and looked at him.

"I was looking for Harry, please, Sir."

The boy ran to his mother showing her the nice things which he had got from the men for his performance.

"Well, take him away, then," said Mr. Shelby; and she quickly left the room, carrying the child in her arms.

"I say, Shelby," said the trader, "that is a fine woman. You could get much money for her in New Orleans, any day. I've seen a thousand dollars paid for a girl like that."

"I don't want any money for her. My wife likes her and wouldn't part with her. I don't want to speak about it."

"Well, you'll let me have the boy, won't you?" said the trader.

"What do you want the boy for?" asked Shelby.

"I have a friend who sells good boys in the market. He sells them to rich people. Boys can be waiters, open doors and help in the house."

"I don't want to take the boy from his mother," said Mr. Shelby.

"Oh, you can send the woman away for a day or a week; then your wife can give her a new dress or some other thing to make it up with her."

"I'll think it over and talk to my wife," said Mr. Shelby.

"But I want to know the result as soon as possible," said Haley, rising and putting on his coat.

"Well, come this evening between six and seven, and you shall have my answer," said Mr. Shelby, and the trader left the house.

Part II

In the evening Mr. Shelby told his wife that he had sold Tom and little Harry to Haley. Elisa was in the next room and heard the conversation. She decided to take her boy and run away to Canada, where Negroes were free. She packed some of her things, took the boy in her arms and quietly Left the house.

To get to Canada Elisa had to cross the Ohio River. She knew the road to the river, as she had of ten gone with her mistress to visit some friends in the little village near the Ohio River. Elisa walked all the night. In the morning, when people and horses began to move along the road, she sat down behind the trees and gave little Harry something to eat. After a short rest they continued their way. In the afternoon she stopped at a small farm-house to rest and buy some dinner for the boy and herself.

When the sun was already low, they came to the Ohio River. Elisa was tired but strong in heart. She looked at the river that was on her way to freedom. It was spring and the river was swollen, large pieces of ice were floating in the water. She understood that it would be difficult to get a boat and cross the river at such a time.

At a small inn she asked about the boats. The woman there told Elisa that the boats had stopped running, and she looked with curiosity at the woman and her child.

"My boy is dangerously ill, I walked the whole day in the hope to get to the boat," said Elisa. The woman was sorry for the poor mother and asked her husband for advice.

"He said he would try. There is a man who crosses the river very of ten. He will be here to supper in the evening, so you may stay here and wait," said the woman. "Take the child into this room" continued she, opening the door into a. small bedroom, where stood a comfortable bed.

Elisa put the tired boy upon the bed, and held his hands in hers till he was asleep. There was no rest for her. She was afraid that the trader and her master would follow her and take little Harry away from her. Elisa stood at the window looking at the river. "How can I get to the other side?" she thought. "I must get over the river with my child, then no one will be able to catch us."

Suddenly she heard men's voices and saw Haley. Her room had a door opening to the river. She caught up the boy and ran down to the river. The men saw her and started running after her. She heard their shouts. In a moment she jumped onto a large piece of ice in the river. It was a dangerous jump. Haley and the men cried something to her and lifted their hands. The piece of ice creaked as Elisa jumped onto it, but she did not stay there. She jumped to another and still another piece, falling and jumping again. She lost her shoes, her stocking were cut from her feet, blood marked her every step on the ice; but Elisa saw nothing, felt nothing, till, as in a dream, she saw the other bank of the Ohio, and a man helping her up the bank.

Unit 7

THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE

by O. Wilde

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her a red rose," cried the young student, "but there is not a single red rose in all my garden."

From her nest in the oak-tree the Nightingale heard him, and she looked out through the leaves and wondered.

"Not a single red rose in all my garden!" cried the student, and his beautiful eyes filled with tears. "Happiness depends so much on such little things! I have read all that the wise men have written, I know all the secrets of philosophy, but my life is unhappy because I have no red rose."

"Here at last is a true lover," said the Nightingale. "Night after night I have sung about him, though I did not know him; night after night I have told his story to the stars, and now I see him."

"The Prince gives a ball tomorrow night," whispered the young student, "and my love will be there. If I bring her a red rose, I shall hold her in my arms, and she will put her head upon my shoulder, and her hand will be in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden, so I shall sit alone, and she will pass me by, and my heart will break."

"Here indeed is a true lover," said the Nightingale. "What I sing about, he suffers; what is joy to me, to him is pain. Love is a wonderful thing. It is dearer than jewels."

"The musicians will play, and my love will dance," said the young student. "She will dance so lightly that her feet will not touch the floor. But she will not dance with me, for I have no red rose to give her," and he threw himself down on the grass and buried his face in his hands, and cried.

"Why is he crying?" asked a little green lizard, as he ran past him with his tail in the air.

"He is crying for a red rose," said the Nightingale.

"For a red rose? How funny." The little lizard laughed loudly.

But the Nightingale understood the secret of the student's sorrow, and she sat silent in the oak-tree, and thought about love.

Suddenly she spread her brown wings and flew up into the air. She passed through the wood like a shadow, and like a shadow she flew over the garden.

In the centre of the lawn was standing a beautiful rose-tree., and when she saw it, she flew over to it and said, "Give me a red rose and I will sing you my sweetest song." But the rose-tree shook its head.

"My roses are white," it answered, "whiter than the snow upon the mountains. But go to my brother who grows round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you want."

So the Nightingale flew over to the rose-tree that was growing round the old sun-dial.

"Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will singyou my sweetest song."

But the rose-tree shook its head. "My roses are yellow," it answered. "But go to my brother who grows under the student's window, and perhaps he will give you what you want."

So the Nightingale flew over to the rose-tree that was growing under the student's window.

But the rose-tree shook its head.

"My roses are red," it answered. "But the winter has frozen my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no roses at all this year."

"One red rose is all I want," cried the Nightingale, "only one red rose! Is there no way how to get it?"

"There is a way," answered the rose-tree, "but it is so terrible that I am afraid to tell you about it."

"Tell me," said the Nightingale, "I am not afraid."

"If you want a red rose," said the tree, "you must build it out of music by moonlight, and crimson it with your own heart's blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must run through your heart and your blood must flow into my branches and become mine."

"Death is a great price to pay for a red rose," cried the Nightingale, "and life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the sun, and the moon. Yet Love is better than life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?"

So she spread her brown wings and flew into the air. She flew over the garden like a shadow and like a shadow she passed through the wood.

The young student was still lying on the grass where she had lef t him, and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes.

"Be happy," cried the Nightingale, "be happy. You shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and crimson it with my own heart's blood. I only ask you in return to be a true lover, for love is wiser than philosophy and mightier than power."

The student looked up from the grass and listened, but he could not understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things that are in books.

But the oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches.

"Sing me one last song," he whispered, "I shall feel very lonely when you are gone."

So the Nightingale sang to the oak-tree.

When she had finished her song the student got up, and pulled a note-book and a pencil out of his pocket.

"She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the wood, "but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists. She thinks of music, and everybody knows the artists are selfish. Still, I must say that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity that they do not mean anything."

And he went into his room, and lay down on his bed, and began to think of his love; and, after a time, he fell asleep.

And when the moon shone in the sky the Nightingale flew to the rose-tree, and pressed her breast against the thorn. All night long she sang, and the thorn went deeper and deeper into her breast and her blood flowed out.

She sang of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl. And on the top of the rose-tree appeared a beautiful rose. Pale it was at first, as the fog that hangs over the river — pale as the feet of the morning.

But the rose-tree cried to the Nightingale, "Press closer, little Nightingale, or the day will come before the rose is finished."

So the Nightingale pressed closer and closer against the thorn, and louder and louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul of a man and a maiden.

The leaves of the rose became faintly pink. But the thorn had not yet reached the Nightingale's heart, so the rose's heart remained white, f or only a Nightingale's blood can crimson the heart of a rose.

And the rose-tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. "Press closer, little Nightingale," cried the rose-tree, "or the day will come before the rose is finished."

So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and she felt a sharp pain. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang about the love that never dies.

And the beautiful rose became crimson like the eastern sky. But the Nightingale's voice grew weaker and her little wings began to beat.

When day came, she gave one last burst of music. The white moon heard it, and she forgot that it was morning and remained in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over and opened to the cold morning air.

"Look, look!" cried the rose-tree. "The rose is finished now!" But the Nightingale did not answer for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart.

And at noon the student opened his window and looked out. "How wonderful!" he cried. "Here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like this in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name," and he bent down and picked it with joy in his heart.

Then he put on his hat, and ran to the Professor's house with the rose in his hand.

The daughter of the Professor was sitting in the doorway and her little dog was lying at her feet.

"You said you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose," cried the student. "Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will wear it tonight next to your heart, and when we dance together it will tell you how I love you."

But the girl answered.

"I am afraid it will not go with my dress, and besides, another man has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers."

"Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful," said the young student angrily and he threw the rose into the street and a cart-wheel went over it.

"Ungrateful!" said the girl. "I'll tell you what, you are rude; and, after all, who are you? Only a poor student!" and she got up from her chair and went into the house.

"What a silly thing love is," said the student as he walked away. "It is always telling us things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back and study philosophy."

So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read.

Exercises and Assignments on the Text

Unit 14

THE BOY NEXT DOOR by J. London

Sladen Morris is the boy next door. He has grown very tall now, and all the girls think he is wonderful. But I remember when he refused to comb his hair and to force him to wash his face. Of course, he remembers me too; whenever I appear in a new dress and special hair-do, he says, "Well, well, look at Betsy, she's almost grown-up. But I remember her first party, when she was so excited that she dropped her ice-cream on her best dress, and she ran home crying."

So when I say that Sladen Morris didn't mean anything to me, I am quite serious. But I had known him so long that I felt I had to take care of him — just as I feel towards Jimmy, my little brother. That's the only f eeling I had — neighbourly friendship — when I tried to save Sladen from Merry Ann Milburn.

Merry Ann — I'm sure her real name was simply Mary; but Mary wasn't poetic enough for her. She came to Springdale to visit her aunt and uncle; her aunt brought her to our house f or tea. She looked wonderful — I always tell the truth — with her bright, blonde hair and big blue eyes. And she said many high, fine things. But as soon as her aunt and mother left the room, Merry Ann changed, as T. knew she would. "What do people do f or entertainment in this dead town?" That was the first thing she said. And then — "It's so far from New York!"

"Oh!" I said, "we have dances at the Country Club every Saturday, and swimming and tennis and..."

She interrupted me: "Are there any interesting men?"

I had never before thought of them as "interesting," or as "men" either. But I started naming all the boys in town. "There is Benny Graham," I said, "and there is Carter Williams, and Dennis Brown, and Bill Freeman. All quite interesting." That was a lie, but not a very big one. I did not name Sladen Morris, because I had already decided to save him from that terrible girl.

At that moment, Merry Ann looked out of our window, just as Sladen came across the grass towards our house — probably to invite me to play a game of tennis, as usual. He came in without asking for permission. "Ah!" he said, his eyes on blonde Merry Ann — he didn't even notice me — "where did you come from, my beauty?"

"From New York," she answered, "but I don't want to go back there — not now!"

Not too clever, I think, but he seemed happy to hear it. "I don't remember why I decided to come here," he said. "But now I'm sure a good angel brought me."

"And did the good angel push that tennis racket into your hand?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, my tennis racket," he said, looking foolish. He still didn't look at me. "Do you play tennis?" he asked Merry Ann.

“Very little”, Merry Ann said. “I will need help”.

“What about a game now?” Sladen asked.

"I'd love a game — but I'll have to go home and change my clothes."

"I'll take you home and wait for you," Sladen offered.

"Good-bye, Betsy," Merry Ann said. "Please, tell your mother how much I enjoyed this afternoon at your house."

"And please come often," I said — and I thought to myself, I'd like to give you a cup of tea next time with a little poison in it.

Well, the result of this conversation was that suddenly I f elt very bad, and I ran to my bedroom and threw myself on my bed, and I cried. Mother can hear tears through three walls and soon I heard her voice at the door. "Betsy, dear," she said, "May I come in?"

"Of course," I answered. "But I've got a terrible headache."

"I have an idea," Mother began. "Perhaps you'd like to invite your friends to a party here?"

A party. For a whole year I had asked Mother to let me give a party, and she had always answered, "It will cost too much," or "Wait until you are eighteen," and a dozen other reasons; now she was suggesting a party herself.

Well, after that everywhere I went, there was Merry Ann with Sladen Morris behind her, like a big dog. I had always played tennis with Sladen whenever the weather wasn't wet; now I had to look for a partner, and I had to watch him playing with Merry Ann. She was a terrible player: she didn't even hold her racket correctly. But she wore those little white tennis dresses that cinema actresses wear in the pictures and, to tell the truth, she looked very nice.

I knew that the party would be a mistake with Merry Ann among the guests; but it was Mother's favourite subject. So I invited all the "nice young people", as Mother calls them, to come to our house for dinner before the Country Club dance.

They all agreed to come — six boys who wanted a chance to be with Merry Ann, and five girls, including me, who came because they didn't want anybody to think they were afraid of the Merry enemy.

Mother bought me a new dress, with a very wide skirt: it was not the simple, girlish dress that my mother usually chooses for me. And my father bought me flowers to wear in my hair, which was combed up. Before the guests arrived, I looked forward to the dinner with more bravery than I had expected, because the new dress and the hair-do gave me strength. But that was before they arrived. When they came and I saw Merry Ann holding Sladen's arm, my courage left me. My dress was nothing, compared with the clouds of red chiffon that hung on Merry Ann's shoulders and swam around her.

"Well, well, look at Betsy," Sladen started. "But I remember her when..."

"I remember also," I interrupted coldly, "so you needn't spend your time telling us about that incident a hundred years ago."

Merry Ann monopolised the conversation, and she talked only with the boys — turning her big blue eyes first on one then another. "What's the Country Club like?" she asked. "I have gone dancing only at New York clubs, so I don't know much about small-town clubs."

The dinner was as uninteresting as I had expected. When it was over, everybody went to the Country Club, feeling a little ashamed that it couldn't compare with anything in New York.

All the boys danced with me — they had to, because they were my guests. The evening was very warm, and little by little everybody began to go outside to sit around the swimming pool. Dennis Brown and I went out too, and we walked up and down in front of their chairs.

It was just in front of Merry Ann that it happened. Perhaps it was an accident — I don't say she did it on purpose — but I wasn't so near her chair, and her foot was pushed out very far. Of course I couldn't see her foot in the dark, and I fell over it and into the pool. As I sent down, I could hear Merry Ann laughing, and I hoped I would drown. But I knew that anybody who swam as well as I did couldn't seriously hope for such an end to her suffering. I did not come up — I knew they were all standing there laughing — so I swam under water to the iron ladder at the other end of the pool. I planned to run up the ladder and then as fast as I could to the dressing-room. From there, I would go home.

When I found the ladder with my hand, I began to pull myself up. But then I discovered that my dress was caught in the ladder. I pulled and pulled (I was still under water) but I couldn't free the dress. And then everything became black.

When I came to myself, I was lying on my face and Sladen was pumping the water out of me. At first I was too uncomfortable to notice anything; but then I began to take more interest in the scene. I saw that several of the boys had offered themselves as the hero of the incident; not only Sladen’s best suit was full of water; it was running from the suits and hands and faces of Dennis and Bill and Carter. Even Janet, who is an athlete like me, had jumped in to pull me out.

"I'm sorry," I said, as soon as I could talk again. "It was my fault."

"No, it wasn't, but don't talk, you little fool," Sladen ordered angrily.

"Yes, keep quiet," Merry Ann said. "Everybody was so worried about you. Why did you hide at the bottom of the pool?"

And then Sladen said something that showed he wasn't a gentleman at all. But I shall love him for it as long as I live. "Hit her, Nora!" he said. "I am a gentleman, and besides, I'm busy."

"Oh — you terrible people!" Merry Ann cried. "I won't stay here another minute!"

"You boys can choose who is the unlucky one that takes her home," Sladen said. "Perhaps Benny and Joe will both go in the car with her. She is too dangerous to be alone with the driver."

He rose to his feet. "Get up, Betsy," he ordered. "I think you will probably go through life all right, if you choose a more practical swimming costume in future." The way Sladen said it made me feel comfortable and warm, which was foolish: there was nothing especially pleasant in is words.

All of us, the wet and the dry, got into the cars. Sladen put his coat around me and took me home.

"Listen you," he said on the way. "I see that I'll have to stay nearer to you — you simply can't take care of yourself. Better not go out of the house unless I go with you. Don't you think that's a good idea?"

For the first time in my life, I felt my strength as a weak woman, though my hair-do was wet and ruined.

"Sladen, you saved my life. You are terribly strong and you always know what to do. And if you want me to be with you, I'll be glad." I looked at him with an expression that I thought might have an effect.

"You know, Betsy," Sladen continued, very seriously, "it's strange, sometimes you don't see something that's under your own nose. It has just come to my mind that you are the best girl I know, and I've lived next door to you for seventeen years."

He stopped the car and kissed me. It wasn't the best kind of a kiss, because we were both still wet. But for some reason it was very romantic, and sud- denly I felt beautiful and interesting. I sat there looking at Sladen Morris with new eyes, probably because he suddenly didn't look at all like the boy next door.

NOTES:

1. poison — яд;

2. drown — тонуть;

3. ladder — лестница;

4. pump out — выкачивать.

Unit 15

SURPRISE by J. Galsworthy

There was a time when geniuses sometimes starved. But there is no reason why a genius must starve in our modern times. The following story of my friend, Bruce, proves that this is true. He was almost sixty when I met him, and he was the author of about fifteen books. The few people who really understood serious realistic literature called him 'a genius'. But Bruce was not interested in what people thought of him or his work. He never read criticism of his books in the newspapers or magazines. He lived alone in his small, dark, dirty room. From time to time he disappeared for several months; and then he appeared again and began to write.

He was a tall, thin man with a face like mark Twain's: black eyebrows, a grey moustache and grey hair. His eyes were dark brown and sad; they seemed not to belong to his face or to the world around him. He had never married, and lived quite alone. He never had much money; and the year I am writing about had been even worse than usual for him. His last book had been a hopeless failure. Besides, he had had an operation, which had cost him much money and left him too weak to work. The day I went to see him, I found him in a gloomy mood, half lying on two chairs, smoking strong cigarettes, which I hated.

"Hello!" he said, and then continued without giving me a chance to ask after his health: "Last night I went into a place that they call a cinema. Have you ever been in once?"

"Ever been? Do you know how long the cinema has existed? Since 1900!"

"Is that so? A terrible place, and terrible people in it. Well, last night they showed a film — what a thing! I've never read such an idiotic story or seen such idiotic characters. How can people look at it? I'm writing a parody on it."

"A parody on an idiotic film?"

"Yes! My heroine is one-quarter black, three quarters white. She is unbelievably beautiful, and all the men run af ter her. Her brother, a man with a heart of stone, wants her to marry a millionaire, who is as bad as he is. All the characters have deep, dark secrets in their lives." He laughed.

"How can you spend your time on such foolishness?" I asked.

"My time!" he answered angrily. "Who needs my time? Nobody buys my books. I'll probably 'starve to death!" He took a page of scenario and laughed again as he read it. "In that film last night they had a race between a train and a car. I've done better: I have a race between a train, a car, an airplane and a horse."

I began to be interested. "May I look at your scenario when you have finished it?" I asked.

"It's already finished. I enjoyed writing it so much that I couldn't sleep until I had come to the end." He gave me the papers. "Take it, you'll have a good laugh, I hope. The heroine's secret is that she isn't black at all. She is part Spanish, part French, and she is a southern aristocrat. And the bad brother isn't really her brother, and the millionaire in reality is a poor man, and the man she loves, who seems to be poor, is really rich." And he laughed until his face was red and his eyes were full of tears.

I went away worried about him, about his health and his penniless condition. How could I help him? How could anybody help him?

After dinner that evening, I began to read the scenario. There were thirty-five pages, and as soon as I had read ten of them, it was clear to me that he had written a masterpiece. I knew that any good film company would be glad to pay whatever he wanted to ask for it. "But," I thought. "if I go to him and tell him what I am planning to do with his scenario, he'll throw it in the fire. He'll never agree to be known as the author of such a thing. I remember how he laughed at it. How can I make him allow me to do whatever I like with the scenario?"

I went to see him again the next day. He was reading.

I interrupted him. "Must I give you back the scenario, or can I keep it?"

"What scenario?"

"The one that you gave me to read yesterday."

"Oh! What do I need it for? Throw it away."

"All right," I said. "I'll throw it away. Excuse me,I see you're busy."

"No, I'm not," he said. "I have nothing to do. It's f oolish to try to write anything: I get less and less for every book I publish. I am dying of poverty."

"It's your own fault," I said. "You refuse to think about what the public wants."

"How can I know what they want?"

"You don't try to. If I tell you how to make some money by writing something that the public wants, you’ll throw me out of the room."

I returned home and did a little work on the scenario. It was very easy; it was a fine scenario. I wanted to write his name on it, but I was afraid to. At last I decided not to write his name, but to say it was written by 'a genius'. That's a wonderful word; everybody respects it and fears it a little. I knew that after they read the scenario, they would feel it really was written by a genius.

I took it to a leading film company the next day with a note saying: "The author, a recognised literary genius, f or his own reasons prefers to remain unknown." The company was silent for two weeks, but I wasn't worried. I knew they would come to me: they had to — the scenario was too good, it couldn't f ail. And when they appeared, I refused their first offers. I made them come three times. At last I gave them an ultimatum. They agreed to all my demands, as I knew they would: they knew how much the scenario was worth.

Now I had come to the last and greatest difficulty. How could I give the money to Bruce? Many wild ideas came to my mind. At last I decided that I would say I had sold the scenario, because I wanted to make some money f or myself. "He'll be angry with me, but he won't be able to refuse to take the money," I thought.

When I came to his room, I found him lying on two chairs, as usual, smoking his black cigarettes and playing with an old cat that he had found in the street. I asked after his health, and then said: "There's something I must tell you — I'm afraid you may think it rather unpleasant."

"Go on!" he ordered.

"Do you remember that scenario that you wrote and gave me about six weeks ago?"

"Yes, you do. About the beautiful black aristocrat."

"Oh," he laughed. "That foolish thing!"

'-'Well, I sold it."

"What? Who wants to publish a thing like that?"

"It isn't published. They are making a film out of it. A superfilm, they call it."

His eyes opened wide.

"Don't argue," I said. "It's done — I've sold it and here is the money — three thousand pounds. I had to do some work on it, so if you want to pay me ten per cent, I won't refuse."

"My God!" he said.

"Yes, yes," I went on, speaking more quickly. "I know what you are thinking. I know your high ideas about art and literature and culture. But that's all nonsense, Bruce. The story may be vulgar, I agree. But we're vulgar, it's foolish to pretend we are not. vI don't mean you, of course, but people in general. The film will be good entertainment."

I couldn't look at the f ire in his eyes, and I hurried to defend myself.

"You don't live in the world, Bruce. You don't understand what ordinary people want; something to make their grey lives a little brighter. They want blood, excitement of any kind. You haven't hurt them by this film, you have been kind to them. And this is your money, and I want you to take it!"

The cat suddenly jumped down. I waited, expect- ing the storm to begin at any moment. Then I began again. "I know that you hate the cinema and everything connected with it..."

His voice interrupted me. "Nonsense!" he roared. "What are you talking about? Who said I hate the cinema? I go there three times a week!"

This time, I cried, "My God!" I pushed the money into his hand and ran away, followed by the cat.

Exercises and Assignments on the Text

HOME by E. Hughes

This is a story about a young Negro musician, who returns to the USA after the years that he had spent abroad learning to play the violin and giving concerts in different European cities. The action of the story takes place in 1932 in the USA. This was the time of the world economic crisis.

Roy Williams had come home from abroad to visit his mother and sister and brothers who still remained in his native town, Hopkinsville. Roy had been away seven or eight years, travelling all overthe world. He came back very well dressed, but very thin. He wasn't well.

It was this illness that made Roy come home. He had a feeling that he was going to die, and he wanted to see his mother again. This feeling about death started in Vienna, where so many people were hungry, while other people spent so much money in the night clubs where Roy's orchestra played.

In Vienna Roy had a room to himself because he wanted to study music. He studied under one of the best violin teachers.

"It's bad in Europe," Roy thought. "I never saw people as hungry as this."

But it was even worse when the orchestra went back to Berlin. Hunger and misery were terrible there. And the police were beating people who protested, or stole, or begged.

It was in Berlin that Roy began to cough. When he got to Paris his friend took care of him, and he got better. But all the time he had the feeling that he was going to die. So he came home to see his mother.

He landed in New York and stayed two or three days in Harlem. Most of his old friends there, musicians and actors, were hungry and out of work. When they saw Roy dressed so well, they asked him for money.

"It's bad everywhere," Roy thought. "I want to go home."

That last night in Harlem he could not sleep. He thought of his mother. In the morning he sent her a telegram that he was coming home to Hopkinsville, Missouri.

"Look at that nigger," said the white boys, when they saw him standing on the station platform in the September sunlight, surrounded by his bags with the bright foreign labels. Roy had got off a Pullman — something unusual for a Negro in that part of the country.

"God damn!" said one of the white boys. Suddenly Roy recognised one of them. It was Charlie Mumford, an old playmate — a tall red-headed boy. Roy took of f his glove and held out his hand. The white boy took it but did not shake it long. Roy had for- gotten he wasn't in Europe, wearing gloves and shaking hands with a white man!

"Where have you been, boy?" Charlie asked.

"In Paris," said Roy.

"Why have you come back?" someone asked. "I wanted to come and see my mother."

"I hope she is happier to see you than we are," another white boy said.

Roy picked up his bags, there were no porters on the platform, and carried them to an old Ford car that looked like a taxi. He felt weak and frightened. The eyes of the white men at the station were not kind. He heard someone say behind him: "Nigger." His skin was very hot. For the first time in the last seven or eight years he felt his colour. He was home.

Roy's home-coming concert at the Negro church was a success. The Negroes sold a lot of tickets to the white people for whom they worked. The front rows cost fifty cents and were filled with white people. The rest of the seats cost twenty-five cents and were filled with Negroes. There was much noise as the little old church filled. People walked up and down, looking for their seats.

While he was playing Brahms on a violin from Vienna in a Negro church in Hopkinsville, Missouri, for listeners who were poor white people and even poorer Negroes, the sick young man thought of his old dream. This dream could not come true now. It was a dream of a great stage in a large concert hall where thousands of people looked up at him as they listened to his music.

Now he was giving his first concert in America for his mother in the Negro church, for his white and black listeners. And they were looking at him. They were all looking at him. The white people in the front rows and the Negroes in the back.

He was thinking of the past, of his childhood. He remembered the old Kreisler record they had at home. Nobody liked it but Roy, and he played it again and again. Then his mother got a violin for him, but half the time she didn't have the money to pay old man Miller for his violin lessons every week. Roy remembered how his mother had cried when he went away with a group of Negro-musicians, who played Negro songs all over the South.

Then he had a job with a night-club jazz-band in Chicago. After that he got a contract to go to Berlin and play in an orchestra there.

Suddenly he noticed a thin white woman in a cheap coat and red hat, who was looking at him from the first row.

"What does the music give you? What do you want from me?" Roy thought about her.

He looked at all those dark girls back there in the crowd. Most of them had never heard good classical music. Now for the first time in their life they saw a Negro, who had come home from abroad, playing a violin. They were looking proudly at him over the heads of the white people in the first rows, over the head of the white woman in the cheap coat and red hat....

"Who are you, lady?" he thought.

When the concert was over, even some of the white people shook hands with Roy and said it was wonderful. The Negroes said, "Boy, you really can play!" Roy was trembling a little and his eyes burnt and he wanted very much to cough. But he smiled and he held out his hot hand to everybody. The woman in the red hat waited at the end of the room.

After many of the people had gone away, she cameup to Roy and shook hands with him. She spoke of symphony concerts in other cities of Missouri; she said she was a teacher of music, of piano and violin, but she had no pupils like Roy, that never in the town of Hopkinsville had anyone else played so beautifully. Roy looked into her thin, white face and was glad that she loved music.

"That's Miss Reese," his mother told him after she had gone. "An old music teacher at the white high school."

"Yes, Mother," said Roy. "She understands music.

Next time he saw Miss Reese at the white high school. One morning a note came asking him if he would play for her music class some day. She would accompany him if he brought his music. She had told her students about Bach and Mozart, and she would be very grateful if Roy visited the school and played those two great masters for her young people. She wrote him a nice note on clean white paper.

"That Miss Reese is a very nice woman," Mrs. Williams said to her boy. "She sends for you to play at the school. I have never heard of a Negro who was invited there for anything but cleaning up, and I have been in Hopkinsville a long time. Go and play for them, son."

Roy played. But it was one of those days when his throat was hot and dry and his eyes burnt. He had been coughing all morning and as he played he breathed with great difficulty. He played badly. But Miss Reese was more than kind to him. She accompanied him on the piano. And when he had finished, she turned to the class of white children and said, "This is art, my dear young people, this is true art!"

The pupils went home that afternoon and told their parents that a dressed-up nigger had come to school with a violin and played a lot of funny music which nobody but Miss Reese liked. They also said that Miss Reese had smiled and said, "Wonderful!" and had even shaken hands with the nigger, when he went out.

Roy went home. He was very ill these days, getting thinner and thinner all the time, weaker and weaker. Sometimes he did not play at all. Often he did not eat the food his mother cooked for him, or that his sister brought from the place vrhere she vrorked. Sometimes he was so restless and hot in the night that he got up and dressed and then walked the streets of the little town at ten and eleven o'clock after nearly every one else had gone to bed. Midnight was late in Hopkinsville. But for years Roy had worked at night. It was hard f or him to sleep before midnight now.

But one night he walked out of the house for the last time.

In the street it was very quiet. The trees stood silent in the moonlight. Roy walked under the dry falling leaves towards the centre of the town, breathing in the night air. Night and the streets always made him f eel better. He remembered the streets of Paris and Berlin. He remembered Vienna. Now like a dream that he had ever been in Europe at all, he thought. Ma never had any money. With the greatest difficulty her children were able to finish the grade school. There was no high school for Negroes in Hopkinsville. In order to get further education he had to run away from home with a Negro show. Then that chance of going to Berlin with a jazz-band. And his violin had been his best friend all the time. Jazz at night and the classics in the morning at his lessons with the best teachers that his earnings could pay. It was hard work and hard practice. Music, real music! Then he began to cough in Berlin.

Roy was passing lots of people now in the bright lights of Main Street, but he saw none of them. He saw only dreams and memories, and heard music. Suddenly a thin woman in a cheap coat and red hat, a white woman, stepping out of a store just as Roy passed, said pleasantly to him, "Good evening."

Roy stopped, also said, "Good evening, Miss Reese," and was glad to see her. Forgetting he wasn't in Europe, he took off his hat and gloves, and held out his hand to this lady who understood music. They smiled at each other, the sick young Negro and the middleaged music teacher in the light of Main Street. Then she asked him if he was still working on the Sarasate.

Roy opened his mouth to answer when he saw the woman's face suddenly grow pale with horror. Before he could turn round to see what her eyes had seen, he felt a heavy fist strike his face. There was a flash of lightning in his head as he f ell down. Miss Reese screamed. The street near them filled with white young men with red necks, open shirts and fists ready to strike. They had seen a Negro talking to a white woman — insulting a White Woman — attacking a White Woman! They had seen Roy take off his gloves and when Miss Reese screamed when Roy whs struck, they wee sure he had insulted her. Yes, he had. Yes, sir!

So they knocked Roy down. They trampled on his hat and cane and gloves, and all of them tried to pick him up — so that someone else could have the pleasure of knocking him down again. They struggled over the privilege of knocking him down.

Roy looked up from the ground at the white men around him. His mouth was full of blood and his eyes burnt. His clothes were dirty. He was wondering why Miss Reese had stopped him to ask about the Sarasate. He knew he would never get home to his mother now.

The young Negro whose name was Roy Williams began to choke from the blood in his mouth. He didn't hear the sound of their voices or the trampling of their feet any longer. He saw only the moonlight, and his ears were filled with a thousand notes, like a Beethoven sonata…

NOTES:

1. nigger — черномазый;

2. God dawn! — Черт возьми;

3. Kreisler — Крейслер, выдающийся австрийский скрипач.

Exercises and Assignments on the Text

Unit 18

PLEDGER’S WAY HOME

(from The Great Midland by A. Saxton)

Pledger gave part of his pay for a ticket to Chicago. Through the long night he lay asleep, with his head against the arm of his seat, thinking how it would be when he stepped down from the train and Sarah came towards him along the platform. The cold of the winter night came through the windows. Pledger wrapped himself up in his coat.

Towards morning the train stopped in an Indian town. He woke up and got down to the platform, where he began to walk up and down. He felt cold. He walked fast across the street from the station for a cup of coffee. A few people were in the restaurant eating breakfast and Pledger felt the American smell of coffee and toast and bacon. Smiling happily, he sat down at the counter and took the menu.

The counterman was standing over him, young, white and self-important.

“What do you want here?”

“Coffee and fried eggs”, Pledger said calmly.

“We do not serve coloured here”.

Pledger looked at the man attentively for a moment before he understood. Getting up from the chair, Pledger lifted his brown hands in the air. Then he let them fall. He was making an effort to control himself. He saw the other people in the restaurant watching him with expressionless faces. The door closed behind him. He was no longer hungry and now he did not even feel angry. He crossed the street and walked down to the end of the train.

He felt empty and bitter and hurt because of what had been done to him. For a moment he remembered that a Marshal of France had pinned to the flag of his regiment the Cross of War, he remembered the French girls who had kissed the Negro soldiers and cried over them, and the Mayor of New York standing with his hat in his hands. But now he was waking up; it seemed that the people who had been his friends had gone. He found himself alone in the winter daylight, among the snow-covered fields.

He got on the train and took his set. He sat deep in thought through the long hours as the train ran towards Chicago.

Exercises and Assignments on the Text

Unit 19

NO STORY by O. Henry

I was doing work on a newspaper.

One day Tripp came in and leaned on my table.

Tripp was something in the mechanical department. He was about twenty-five and looked forty. Half of his face was covered with short, curly red whiskers that looked like a door-mat. He was pale and unhealthy and miserable and was always borrowing sums of money from twenty-five cents to a dollar. One dollar was his limit. When he leaned on my table he held one hand with the other to keep both from shaking. Whisky.

"Well, Tripp," said I, looking up at him rather impatiently, "how goes it?" He was looking more miserable than I had ever seen him.

"Have you got a dollar?" asked Tripp looking at me with his dog-like eves.

That day I had managed to get five dollars for my Sunday story. "I have," said I; and again I said, "I have," more loudly, "and four besides. And I had hard work getting them. And I need them all."

"I don't want to borrow any," said Tripp, "I thought you'd like to get a good story. I've got a really fine one for you. It'll probably cost you a dollar or two to get the stuff. I don't want anything out of it myself."

"What is the story?" I asked.

"It's girl. A beauty. She has lived all her life on Long Island and never saw New York City before. I ran against her on Thirty-fourth Street. She stopped me on the street and asked me where she could find George Brown. Asked me where she could find George Brown in New York City! What do you think of that?! I talked to her. It's like this. Some years ago George set off for New York to make his fortune. He did not reappear. Now there's a young farmer named Dodd she's going to marry next week. But Ada — her name's Ada Lowery — couldn't forget George, so this morning she saddled a horse and rode eight miles to the railway station to catch the 6.45 a.m. train. She came to the city to look for George. She must have thought the first person she inquired of would tell her where her George was! You ought to see her! What could I do? She had paid her last cent f or her railroad ticket. I couldn't leave her in the street, could I? I took her to a boarding-house. She has to pay a dollar to the landlady. That's the price per day."

"That's no story," said I. "Every ferry-boat brings or takes away girls from Long Island."

Tripp looked disappointed. "Can't you see what an amazing story it would make? You ought to get fifteen dollars for it. And it'll cost you only four, so you'll make a profit of eleven dollars."

"How will it cost me four dollars?" I asked suspiciously.

"One dollar to the landlady and two dollars to pay the girl's fare back home."

"And the fourth?" I inquired.

"One dollar to me," said Tripp. "Don't you see," he insisted, "that the girl has got to get back home today?"

And then I began to feel what is known as the sense of duty. In a kind of cold anger I put on my coat and hat. But I swore to myself that Tripp would not get the dollar.

Tripp took me in a street-car to the boarding-house. I paid the fares.

In a dim parlour a girl sat crying quietly and eating candy out of a paper bag. She was a real beauty. Crying only made her eyes brighter.

"My friend, Mr. Chalmers. He is a reporter," said Tripp "and he will tell you, Miss Lowery, what's best to do."

I felt ashamed of being introduced as Tripp's friend in the presence of such beauty. "Why — er — Miss Lowery," I began feeling terribly awkward, "will you tell me the circumstances of the case?"

"Oh," said Miss Lowery, "there aren't any circumstances, really. You see, everything is fixed for me to marry Hiram Dodd next Thursday. He's got one of the best f arms on the Island. But last night I got to thinking about G — George —"

"You see, I can't help it. George and I loved each other since we were children. Four years go he went to the city. He said he was going to be a policeman of a railroad president or something. And then he was coming back for me. But I never heard from him any more. And I — I — liked him."

"Now, Miss Lowery," broke in Tripp, "you like this young man, Dodd, don't you? He's all right, and good to you, isn't he?"

"Of course I like him. And of course he's good to me. He's promised me an automobile and a motorboat. But somehow I couldn't help thinking about George. Something must have happened to him or he would have written. On the day he left, he got a hammer and a chisel and cut a cent into two pieces. I took one piece and he took the other, and we promised to be true to each other and always keep the pieces till we saw each other again. I've got mine at home. I guess I was silly to come here. I never realised what a big place it is."

Tripp broke in with an awkward little laugh. "Oh, the boys from the country forget a lot when they come to the city. He may have met another girl or something. You go back home, and you'll be all right."

In the end we persuaded Miss Lowery to go back home. The three of us then hurried to the ferry, and there I f ound the price of the ticket to be but a dollar and eighty cents. I bought one, and a red, red rose with the twenty cents for Miss Lowery. We saw her aboard her ferry-boat and stood watching her wave her handkerchief at us. And then Tripp and I f aced each other.

"Can't you get a story out of it?" he asked. "Some sort of a story?"

"Not a line," said I.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. There was disappointment in his tone. Tripp unbuttoned his shabby coat to reach for something that had once been a handkerchief. As he did so I saw something shining on his cheap watch-chain. It was the half of a silver cent that had been cut in halves with a chisel.

"What?!" I exclaimed looking at him in amazement.

"Oh yes," he replied. "George Brown, or Tripp. What's the use?"

Exercises and Assignments on the Text

 

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