ONE:"It would amuse you if you could see the interest that the Japanese take in flying kites. And the funny part of it is that it is the men who do the most of the kite-flying, while the children look on, which is the exact reverse of what we do in our country. They have the funniest kinds of kites, and show a great deal of ingenuity in getting them up. Everybody has them, and they are so cheap that even the beggars can have kites to fly. They are of all sizes and shapes; you can buy a plain kite a few inches square, or you can get one as large as the side of a house, and covered all over with dragons and other things that sometimes cost a neat little sum for the painting alone. The Japanese understand the trick of flying a kite without a tail, and they do it by the arrangement of the strings, which is quite different from ours. On the other hand, some of their kites will have a whole line of strings hanging down as ornaments, and sometimes it looks as if the kite were anchored by means of these extra cords. They make their kites so large that three or four men are needed to hold some of them; and there is a story that a man who one day tied the cord of a kite to his waist was taken up in the air and never heard of[Pg 264] again. And there is another story of a man in the country who had a kite that he harnessed to a plough, and when the wind was good he used to plough his fields by means of it. But the story does not explain how he turned the furrow when he reached the end of the field. Perhaps he had an accommodating wind that shifted at the right time."It was not so, it is not so, and, indeed, God forbid it should be so."
ONE:Im sure its years since Ive been so upset as Ive been to-day, Thomas, she said, for what with you and Mamma worrying each other so at lunch, and Mamma stopping all afternoon and biting my head off, if I said as much as to hope that her rheumatism hadnt troubled her lately, and its wonderful how little it does trouble her really, for Im sure that though I dont complain, I suffer twice as much as she does when we get that damp November weatherDear me, this tea-pot was always a bad pourer: I should have been wiser to get a less handsome one with a straight spout. Well, theres your cup of tea, Im sure youll be glad of it. But there are some days when everything combines to vex one, and it will all be in a piece with what has gone before, if Alice forgets and takes some salmon-mayonnaise,{49} and Mr Silverdale goes away thinking that Im a stingy housekeeper, which has never been said of me yet."She's still very weak," said Aunt Martha when we came to her; "the moment her bed was made up she asked to lie down again."
welcome your challenge!!「あなたらしく」活躍できる場所がここにあります。
TWO:Ferry looked behind to the halted column. "Lieutenant Quinn, send two men to guard this one. Smith, where's Sergeant Langley; where's Kendall? Kendall?"Mrs Keeling suddenly became coherently humorous. An idea (not much of one, but still an idea) floated down the debris from her mind.
TWO:Trained Midwife.At the fence I ceased to lead, and we crept near the gin-house from three sides, warily, though all the chances were that wherever Oliver lay he was heavy with drink. The Colonel stole in alone. He was lost to us for, I should say, five minutes; they seemed thirty; then there pealed upon the stillness an uproarious laugh mingled with oaths and curses, sounds of a plunge, a struggle, a groan, and old Dismukes calling "Come, boys, I've got him! Take it easy, take it easy, I've got him on the floor by the hair of his head; call Gholson!"
THREE:Fred opened his eyes with an expression of astonishment, and said he thought the science of navigation was something wonderful.Your fathers served them out well, she said. Thats the way to get on. To think of their not considering him good enough for their Club. He has shown his spirit very properly. But the idea of Miss Propert telling him whats right and what isnt, on twenty-five shillings a week.
THREE:She was deep in her work now when her brother joined her. Charles was suffering from a cold of paralysing severity, and she looked up with a certain anxiety as a fit of coughing took him, for he was liable to bad bronchitis.
"Well, what is it?""One of the curious places we saw was the Hall of Examinations. This is a large enclosed space, having rows on rows of little cells, where the candidates for the literary degree are examined once in every three years. There are eleven thousand of these cells, and each cell is just large enough for one man to occupy. The candidates are put in these cells, and each man is furnished with a sheet of paper and a pen. He must write on the paper any given page of the Chinese books called 'The Classics' without mistake or alteration, and he is not allowed to try a second time until the next examination comes round. There are men who keep on trying all their lives for the degree, and they tell of one man who succeeded after he was eighty years old. The candidates try all sorts of tricks to smuggle in copies of the books on which they are to be examined, and also extra sheets of paper; but they are carefully searched, and everything of the sort is taken away from them."If you saw him," said Arthur, emphatically, "you'd have to believe. It's just that, and nothing else. He's like one of those mechanical toys come to life. And it's so funny. You'd never guess.""No," said Arthur, and he glanced at the Clockwork man's bald forehead and noticed something peculiar about the construction of the back of his head; there seemed to be[Pg 78] some object there which he could not see because they were facing each other. "I'm sorry," he continued, looking rather hopelessly around him, "perhaps we could find them somewhere."
