Топик: Тексты для экзамена 11 класса

It had been like that almost all his life. Nobody wrote letters to him except that once a month he did get a bill from the gas and electric company and occasionally he found advertising matter in the box like everybody else in town.

Of course, since he did not correspond with anybody , he never wrote a letter himself. But once, many years before , he had written a letter to a young girl in town. He had written to tell her how beautiful and lovely he thought she was and how much he loved her. He added the letter by asking her to marry him, but he had received no answer.

In Stillwater , mail was delivered once a day. Every afternoon, expect Sundays, the bus from New Orleans stopped in the town before the post- office and delivered two or three mail bags full of letters, magazines and newspapers. Soon after they were put into the letter boxes , Ray always closed his shop, where he made very disappointed if there was no mail for him , but he always had a feeling that once of these days he would get some.

Two of the younger men in town, Guy Hodge and Ralph Barnhill, decided to play a joke on Ray. They would send him a letter signed by girl. When he received it, someone would ask him if it was a love letter , and someone else would take it from him and read it to everyone who wanted to listen. They asked Grace Brooks, the switch operator at the telephone company to write the letter . Grace was a pretty girl although not very young any more.

At first Grace said she would have nothing to do with their plan.

‘I would never do such a thing,” she said.

The men did not know that it was Grace who had received the love letter from Ray a long time ago. At that time she was very young and had no thoughts about marrying any man. That was why she had not answered the letter. In recent years there were times when she was sorry she hadn’t . She thought it was because of her that they were both lonely all these years.

“Please, Grace”, said Ralph. “ Be a good girl and write the letter for us or we will ask someone else to do it.”

“No , do not do that. I don’t want anybody else to do it. I’ll write the letter tonight. I think I know what to say.”

After the men left, Grace cried for a long time. Then she wrote a letter and in the morning mailed it in the letter-box at the post-office.

What was the surprise of Ralph, Guy and other people who came to see Ray get the letter, when they saw that after reading it he ran to the telephone exchange. When Guy and Ralph followed him they found Ray and Grace together .

“Why did the joke work out like that? Do you suppose Grace signed her name by mistake?” asked Ralph.

“I think it was not a mistake,” said Guy. “Just think of it. He had been waiting for this letter most of his life and got it only because of us!”

“A joke can go wrong sometimes; that’s all right”, said Ralph. “But the next time we play a joke, let us be sure it is doing to work.”

( After E. Caldwell)

Looking for a Hotel.

It was the Sunday before the August Bank Holiday. We were tired and hungry and when we got to Datchet we started off to look for shelter for the night.

We passed a very pretty little hotel but there was no honeysuckle about it, and for some reason or other , I had got my mind fixed on honeysuckle, and I said:

“ Oh’ don’t let’s go in there ! Let’s go on a bit further , and see if there isn’t one with honeysuckle over it.”

So we went on till we came to another hotel. That was a very nice hotel, too, and it had honeysuckle on it, but Harris did not like the look of a man who was standing near the front door. He said he didn’t look a nice man at all , so we went on the further. We went a goodish way without coming across any more hotels, and then we met a man , and asked him to tell us the way to a few .

He said “Why , you are coming away from them. There are only two hotels in the place.”

“Oh, we had been there , and didn’t like them. And no other hotels?” – Harris asked.

“None”, replied our informant.

“What are we to do ?” cried Harris.

Then George spoke up. He said Harris and I could get a hotel built for us , if we like. For his part, he was going to the hotels we had passed.

We had to follow Gorge. When we came to the hotel we had seen first , the landlord came up and said: “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Oh , good evening,” said Gorge, “two will do. Two of us can sleep on one bad.”

“ Very sorry , sir,” repeated the landlord , ‘ “ but we really haven’t got a bed vacant in the whole house. In fact , we are putting two , even three gentlemen in one bed , as it is. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard-table already, and two in the coffee-room. Can’t possibly take you in tonight.”

We picked up our things, and went to the other hotel. The people at the hotel did not wait to hear us talk. The landlady met us on the doorstep with the greeting that we were the fourteenth party she had turned away within the last hour and a half. As for our weak suggestions of stables, billiard-room, or coal-cellars, she laughed them all off; all these places had been occupied long ago.