一句一句学习新概念第三册 Bruce, about, matter, across, always

sz_will

39.Nothing to worry about


    The rough across the plain soon became so bad that we tried to get Bruce to drive back to the village we had come from.
Even though the road was littered with boulders and pitted with holes, Bruce was not in the least perturbed.

Glancing at his map, he informed us that the next village was a mere twenty miles away.

It was not that Bruce always underestimated difficulties.

He simply had no sense of danger at all.

No matter what the conditions were, he believed that a car should be driven as fast as it could possibly go.

    As we bumped over the dusty track, we swerved to avoid large boulders.

The wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car.


We felt sure that sooner or later a stone would rip a hole in our petrol tank or damage the engine.


Because of this, we kept looking back, wondering if we were leaving a trail of oil and petrol behind us.

    What a relief it was when the boulders suddenly disappeared, giving way to a stretch of plain where the only obstacles were clumps of bushes.
But there was worse to come. Just ahead of us there was a huge fissure.

In response to renewed pleadings, Bruce stopped.

Though we all got out to examine the fissure, he remained in the car.

We informed him that the fissure extended for fifty years and was two feet wide and four feet deep.

Even this had no effect. Bruce went into a low gear and drove at a terrifying speed, keeping the front wheels astride the crack as he followed its zigzag course.

Before we had time to worry about what might happen, we were back on the plain again.

Bruce consulted the map once more and told us that the village was now only fifteen miles away.

Our next obstacle was a shallow pool of water about half a mile across.

Bruce charged at it, but in the middle, the car came to a grinding half. A yellow light on the dashboard flashed angrily and Bruce cheerfully announced that there was no oil in the engine!

sz_will

40.Who's who
              
    It has never been explained why university students seem to enjoy practical jokes more than else.

Students specialize in a particular type of practical joke: the hoax. Inviting the fire brigade to put out a nonexistent fire is a crude form of deception which no self-respecting student would ever indulge in.

Students often create amusing situations which are funny to everyone except the victims.
   
When a student recently saw two workmen using a pneumatic drill outside his university, he immediately telephoned the police and informed them that two students dressed up as workmen were tearing up the road with a pneumatic drill.

As soon as he had hung up, he went over to the workmen and told them that if a policeman ordered them to go away, they were not take him seriously.

He added that a student had dressed up as a policeman and was playing all sorts of silly jokes on people.

Both the police and the workmen were grateful to the student for this piece of advance information.
   
The student did in an archway nearby where he could watch and hear everything that went on.

Sure enough, a policeman arrived on the scene and politely asked the workmen to go away.

When he received a very rude reply from one of the workmen, he threatened to remove them by force.

The workmen told him to do as he pleased and the policeman telephoned for help.

Shortly afterwards, four more policemen arrived and remonstrated with the workmen.

As the men refused to stop working, the police attempted to seize the pneumatic drill.

The workmen struggled fiercely and one of them lost his temper.

He threatened to call the police.

At this, the police pointed out ironically that this would hardly be necessary as the men were already under arrest.

Pretending to speak seriously, one of the workmen asked if he might make a telephone call before being taken to the station.

Permission was granted and a policeman accompanied him to a pay phone.

Only when he saw that the man was actually telephoning the police did he realize that they had all been the victims of a hoax.

sz_will

1. A puma at large

Pumas are large, cat-like animals which are found in America.

When reports came into London Zoo that a wild puma had been spotted forth-five miles south of London, they were not taken seriously.

However, as the evidence began to accumulate, expert from London Zoo felt obliged to investigate, for the descriptions given by people who claimed to have seen the puma were extraordinarily similar.

The hunt for the puma began a small village where a woman picking blackberries saw “a large cat” only five yards away from her.

It immediately ran away when she saw it, and experts confirmed that a puma will not attack a human being unless it is cornered.

The search proved difficult, for the puma was often observed at one place in the morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening.

Wherever it went, it left behind it a trail of dead deer and small animals like rabbits.

Paw prints were seen a number of place and puma fur was found clinging to bushes.

Several people complained of “cat-like noises” at night and a business man on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree.

The exports were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma, but where had it come from?

As no pumas had been reported missing from any zoo in the country, this one must have been in the possession of a private collector and somehow managed to escape.

The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught.

It is disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still at large in the quiet countryside.

tang24

thanks f