Three men in a boat / Трое в лодке, не считая собаки. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“Oh, ah – yes,” he answered, brightening up; “I remember now. I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the food, you know. It was the most disgraceful food I ever tasted in a respectable boat. Did you have any?”

For myself, I have discovered an excellent remedy against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as the ship goes up and down, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose;

and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can’t balance yourself for a week.

George said: “Let’s go up the river.”

He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet, and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George’s. The only one who wasn’t inspired with the suggestion was Montmorency. He never did care for the river.

“It’s all very well for you fellows,” he says; “you like it, but I don’t. There’s nothing for me to do. I don’t admire sceneries, and I don’t smoke. If I see a rat, you won’t stop; and if I go to sleep, you get fooling about with the boat, and let me fall overboard. If you ask me, I call the whole thing incredible foolishness.”

We were three to one, however, and the decision was made[13 - to make a decision – принимать решение].

Exercises

1. Read the chapter and mark the sentences T (true), F (false) or NI (no information).

1. All the friends were feeling well.

2. The only disease the narrator had not got as he believed was cholera.

3. The narrator tried to examine himself.

4. The doctor gave the narrator the prescription which he followed.

5. The supper was not tasty.

6. Harris objected to the sea trip strongly.

7. One of the narrator’s friends paid two pounds five for his food in a sea trip and that was a waste of money.

8. The narrator was against the sea trip because of a sea-sickness he had.

9. People who are sea-sick always confirm it when they are on the shore.

10. Montmorency wasn’t inspired by the idea to travel up the river.

2. Learn the words from the text:

extraordinary, leaflet, suffer, treatment, disease, complication, crawl, prescription, necessity, swallow, faint, fancy, reduction, odour, broth, gaze, puzzled, disgraceful, remedy, recollect.

3. Practice the pronunciation of the following words.

4. Fill in the gaps using the words from the text.

1. With me, it was my liver that was … of order.

2. I sat and … it over.

3. As a boy, the disease … ever left me for a day.

4. We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to … … our diseases.

5. Lunch was at one, and … … four courses.

6. … the beef … the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either – seemed discontented like.

7. Harris said that he … never … able to get sick at sea.

8. I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, … about his voyages.

9. The hard work would give us a good appetite, and … us sleep well.

10. If I … a rat, you won’t stop.

5. Match the words with definitions.

6. Find in the text the English equivalents for:

приступы головокружения, сделать вывод, серьезные осложнения, с точки зрения медицины, нащупать пульс, следовать указаниям, состояние здоровья, огромная скидка, приятный аромат, состоящий из четырех блюд, делать что-то нарочно, восхищаться пейзажем.

7. Find the words in the text for which the following are synonyms:

remedy, recollect, sea trip, gaze, to be against, ordinary, disease, begin, main, in the present instance.

8. Explain and expand on the following.

1. I was a hospital in myself.

2. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a weak wreck.

3. My parents did not know, then, that it was my liver and they used to put it down to laziness.

4. If you want rest and change, you can’t beat a sea trip.

5. A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked.

6. It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick – on land.

7. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards.

8. The only one who wasn’t inspired with the suggestion was Montmorency.

9. Answer the following questions.

1. How many people are there in the room? Why are they “bad”?