Ex. 21. Weather Forecasts

SECTION SIX

Ex. 15. Nothing to Complain About

Ex. 12. About the Job

SECTION FIVE

Ex. 16.

Insufficient Local Knowledge

A Londoner who was going to the West of England for a holiday, arrived by train at a town, and found that it was pouring. He called a porter to carry his bags to a taxi. On the way out of the s ation, partly to make conversation and partly to get a local opinion on prospects of weather for his holiday, he asked the porter:

"How long has it been raining like this?"

"I don't know sir, I've only been here for fifteen years," was the reply.

Harry: Well, Robert, have you made up your mind yet what you want to do when you leave college?

Nora: Oh, Harry, surely he's a bit young to decide on his career? be hasn't even got to college yet.

Harry: Not at all, Nora. It's wisest to decide in good time. Look at me, for example. I really wanted to be a sailor, but now I spend my days sitting at a desk in an office. Yes, it's silly to train for the wrong job. And after all, Robert will be going to college soon.

Nora: (musing) Now if I were a man I'd be a farmer. To see the crops growing — that's my idea of a good life.

Harry: Well, you haven't answered my question у at, Robert. What would you like to do?

Nora: (wistfully) Are you sure you don't want to be a farmer, Robert? Or a market gardener?

Rоbert: No I'm sorry, Mum, but I don't want to at all. I'd rather be a civil engineer. I want to build roads and bridges.

Harry: Not ships? Isn't it better to be a shipbuilding engineer?

Robert: (crossly) Look here, is it my career we're planning or yours?

Harry (huffed) All right, all right, there's no need to lose your temper. But you'd better win that scholarship first.

An intelligent small boy was sitting in a bus. A passenger sitting next to him asked him a question:

"How old are you?"

"I'm four," answered the child.

"I wish I were four," said the passenger. He was considerably taken aback, however, when the child, turning rather a surprised gaze upon him, replied:

"But you were four once."

Ex. 19. See p. 211.

Two men were travelling in a very wild part of America. They saw no modern houses and no traces of civilization for many days. What they saw were only a few huts made of wood or tents where Indians lived. One day they met an old Indian who was a hunter. He was very clever and knew everything about the forest and the animals living in it and many other things. He could also speak English quite well.

"Can you tell us what the weather will be like during the next few days?" one of the two travellers asked him.

"Oh, yes," he answered. "Rain is coming, and wind. Then there will be snow for a day or two but then the sunshine will come again and the weather will be fine."

"These old Indians seem to know more about Nature than we with all our science," said the man to his friend. Then he turned to the old Indian.

"Tell me," he asked, "how do you know all that?"

The Indian answered: "I heard it over the radio."

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