Considered one of the greatest English writers，Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30，1865，in Bombay, India．Young Kipling was especially close to his mother．For Kipling，India was a wonderful place．He learned the language and connected with the country and its culture．

    However, at the age of six，Kipling's life changed when his mother, wanting her son to receive a good education in British schools，sent him to Southsea，England，where he attended school and lived with a family named the Holloways．

  These were hard years for Kipling．Mrs．Holloway was a strict woman．She beat and laughed at the young man，who also tried to be good at school．

Kipling's solace(安慰)came in books and stories．With few friends，he made himself busy in reading，but Mrs. Holloway always took away his books．

    Kipling's mother finally knew about her son's hard life．She rushed back to England and placed him in a new school in Devon．There，Kipling discovered his interest in writing，later becoming editor(编辑)of the school newspaper．

    In 1882，Kipling returned to India and worked for a magazine，writing poetry and stories in his spare time．In 1892，he married Caroline Balestier．Then，the couple lived in America．Kipling seemed to love his new life，which soon saw the Kiplings welcome their first and second children．As a writer,too，Kipling wrote The Jungle Book(1894)，The Naulahka：A Story of West and East(1892)and The Second Jungle Book(1895)．Kipling was delighted to be around children．His books enchanted(使着魔)girls and boys all over the English—speaking world．In 1907，he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature(文学)and became the first English author in the Nobel history．

  Kipling's The Jungle Book was adapted(改编)to a Disney film in 1967．A new live—action version(改编本)of the movie came out early this year ,which has proved to be a success．

    Once there was a piano player in a bar. People came just to hear him play. But one night, a girl asked him to sing a song.

    “I don't sing,” said the man.

    But the girl told the waiter, “I'm tired of listening to the piano. I want the player to sing! ”

    The waiter shouted across the room, “Hey, friend! If you want to get money, sing a song!”

    So he did. He had never sung in public before. Now he was singing for the very first time! Nobody had ever heard the song!

    He had skills(技能) he was sitting on! He may have lived the rest of his life as a no-name piano player in a no-name bar. But once he caught the chance, and found, by accident, that he could sing well, he went on working hard and became one of the best-known singers in the US. His name was Nat King Cole.

    You, too, have skills. You may not feel that your skills are great, but it may be better than you think. With hard work, most skills can be improved(提高).

    In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what "keeping up with the Joneses" is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.The expressoion was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.It was like a race, but one could never finish his race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.

    Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it "Keeping up with the Joneses" because "Jones" is a very common name in the United States."Keeping up with the Joneses" came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand's series appeared in different newspapers throughout the country for over 28 years. People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are "Joneses" in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one  does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.

    It's a Saturday afternoon. Mrs. Black goes to a dinner party. She is in an old jacket. When she comes into the party room, no one says hello to her. They don't ask her to have dinner. Mrs. Black is not happy.

    Then Mrs. Black goes home. She puts on her nice clothes. And she comes back to the party. All of people say hello to her and they ask her to have dinner. Is she happy now?

    Mrs. Black says, "You like my clothes, not me." Then she gets her clothes some food.

    "Eat, clothes," Mrs. Black says, "they like you, not me!"

    Then she doesn't have the dinner and goes back home.