Esio Trot part 3

When he had finished, Mr Hoppy, in his enthusiasm(热心，热忱，热情) , had bought no less than one hundred and forty tortoises and he carried them home in baskets, ten or fifteen at a time. He had to make a lot of trips and he was quite exhausted（疲惫的） at the end of it all, but it was worth it. Boy, was it worth it! And what an amazing sight his living-room was when they were all in there together! The floor was swarming with（充满） tortoises of different sizes, some walking slowly about and exploring, some munching（用力咀嚼） cabbage leaves, others drinking water from a big shallow（浅的） dish. They made just the faintest（极小的） rustling（瑟瑟声） sound as they moved over the canvas（帆布台） sheet, but that was all. Mr Hoppy had to pick his way carefully on his toes between this moving sea of brown shells whenever he walked across the room. But enough of that. He must get on with（继续干） the job. Before he retired Mr Hoppy had been a mechanic（机修工） in a bus garage（车库）. And now he went back to his old place of work and asked his mates if he might use his old bench for an hour or two. What he had to do now was to make something that would reach down from his own balcony to Mrs Silver’s balcony and pick up a tortoise. This was not difficult for a mechanic like Mr Hoppy. First he made two metal claws(爪子) or fingers, and these he attached to the end of a long metal tube. He ran two stiff（坚硬的） wires down inside the tube and connected them to the metal claws in such a way that when you pulled the wires, the claws closed, and when you pushed them, the claws opened. The wires were joined to handle at the other end of the tube. It was all very simple. Mr Hoppy was ready to begin. Mrs silver had a part-time job. She worked from noon until five o’clock every weekday afternoon in a shop that sold newspapers and sweets. That made things a lot easier for Mr Hoppy. So on that first exciting afternoon, after he had made sure that Mrs Silver had gone to work, Mr Hoppy went out on to his balcony armed with his long metal pole. He called this his tortoise-catcher. He leaned over the balcony railings（阳台栏杆） and lowered the pole down on to Mrs Silver’s balcony below. Alfie was basking in（沉浸于） the pale（苍白的） sunlight over to one side. “Hello, Alfie,” Mr Hoppy said. “You are about to go for a little ride.” “He wiggled（摆动） the tortoise-catcher till it was right above Alfie. He pushed the hand-lever so that the claws opened wide（敞开）. Then he lowered（降低） the two claws neatly over Alfie’s shell and pulled the lever. The claws closed tightly over the shell like two fingers of a hand. He hauled Alfie up on to his own balcony. It was easy. Mr Hoppy weighed Alfie on his own kitchen scales just to make sure that Mrs Silver’s figure（数字） of thirteen ounces was correct. It was. Now, holding Alfie in one hand, he picked his way carefully through his huge collection of tortoises to find one that first of all had the same colour shell as Alfie’s and secondly weighted exactly two ounces more. Two ounces is not much. It’s less than a smallish（有点小的） hen’s（母鸡的） egg weighs. But, you see, the important thing in Mr Hoppy’s plan was to make sure that the new tortoise was bigger than Alfie but only a tiny bit bigger. The difference had to be so small that Mrs Silver wouldn’t notice it. 喜欢我们请点赞给我们加加油哦：-） Proud English 微信公众号： Proud-English