Intermediate English Course Programme 17 Text One

Bedtime Story

Mike

Are you ready, David? Right: The Lost Coin. One afternoon just before Christmas an old gentleman was wandering through the city centre. The gaily-illuminated shops were packed with good things and crowded with cheerful shoppers. The children were gazing in wonder at all the toys on display in the windows, and the old man was surfing the happy scene indulgently. Suddenly in the middle of the throng he spotted a dirty little boy sitting on the pavement, weeping bitterly. When the kind old man asked him why he was crying, the< little boy told him that he had lost a tenpenny piece that his uncle had given him. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, the old man pulled out a handful of coins. He picked out a shiny, new ten- penny piece and handed in to the child. "Thank you very much," said the little boy, and, drying his eyes, he cheered up at once. An hour or so later the old man was making his way back home by the same route. To his astonishment he saw the same dirty little boy in precisely the same spot, crying Just as bitterly as before. He went up to the boy and asked him if he had lost the ten pence he had given him as well. The little boy told him that actually he had not lost the second coin, but he still could not find his first ten pence. "If I could find my own ten pence,'' he said tearfully, "I'd have twenty pence now." Did you like that?... Janet, he's asleep!

Prepositions, Verbs, Phrases, Idioms