幽默故事 第7期

A

At age of 83，Granddad went to the hospital for the first time. “What’s this？”he asked as he held up the bell cord（绳） that had been fastened（拴）to his pillow（枕头）.

“That’s the bell, Granddad,”I replied.

He pulled it several times, then said to me, “I don’t hear it ringing.”

“Oh, it doesn’t ring,”I explained.“It turns on a light in the hall for the nurse.”

“Well！”he replied angrily.“If the nurse wants a light on in the hall, she can turn it on herself.”

B

Once Mark Twain and two friends were sitting in a restaurant. One friend had just returned from a trip to Vermont. The friend said that the air in the mountain of Vermont was very clear. In many places the echo（回声） of a voice came back five times stronger than the original（最初的）voice. The second friend said that was nothing. In Colorade, where he lived, in many places the echo of a voice spoken in the morning came back in the afternoon.

Mark Twain laughed and then said：“Listen！The echoes which you have told are very unusual. But in a small church（教堂）in Missouri, where I was born, there is an echo even more unusual than those.”

“What is so strange about the echo there？”asked one of them.

“Well, I’ll tell you,”said Mark Twain.“The echo in that church is so unusual that if one asks in a loud voice,‘Good morning! How are you？’The echo repeats very clearly after a moment.‘Very well, thank you, and how are you？’”

C

The best thing about moving back to my hometown was seeing so many familiar（熟悉的）faces. One day, in the grocery store（杂货店）, I recognized a man who had been a good friend of my parents. He noticed my staring（凝视）at him, so I quickly introduced myself as Jenny and Helen’s daughter.

“Helen’s daughter！”he cried in surprise.“Oh, your mother is a very beautiful lady.”He called to his wife, “Martha, come and see Helen’s daughter. You remember Helen—such a beautiful lady.”

“Oh, yes.”Matha replied. “She was always so pretty.”

After talking about my mother, he turned to me and said,“You don’t look like your mother but your father.”

D

One hot day, as I was driving back to the ice-cream depot（批发站） where I work, I found myself in a traffic jam（交通堵塞）. I got an ice-cream from the back of my truck. Four sweltering（汗流满面的）children in the car behind watched me eat it. Feeling sorry for them, I gave them some ice-cream, too. In minutes I was surrounded by many children. By the time traffic began to move, I had gone through four cartons（箱）. Rather than explain the situation（情况）to my boss，I decided to pay for the ice-cream myself.

When I got to the depot, however, I was called to the manager’s office and asked why I had been giving away company stock. I expect to be fired（解雇）. Instead, my boss smiled broadly and said that it was the best public relations（公共关系）the firm（公司）had had in years. Parents had been phoning to thank the company.