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    A young man once went to buy a pair of pants. When he got home, he went upstairs(上楼) to his bedroom and put them on. He found that they were two inches(英寸) long.

    Then he came out of his room to see his mother and his two sisters. They were washing something in the kitchen. “These new pants are too long, they need to be shortened(缩短) about two inches. Would one of you like to do this for me, please?” His mother and sisters were busy and none of them said anything. The mother went upstairs after she had finished washing and shortened the pants two inches. But she didn't tell her daughters about it.

    Later on, after supper, the elder sister remembered her brother's pants. So she went upstairs without saying to anyone, and shortened the pants two inches.

    The younger sister went to the cinema, but when she came back, she also remembered what her brother had said. So she ran upstairs, and took two inches off the legs of the new pants.

    A boy called Mike had many friends, and he was proud of it. Whoever he met, he would like to show off how popular he was at school.

    One day, his grandpa said to him, “Mike, I know that you don't have as many friends as you think. Many of them are not true to you.”

    Mike thought maybe his grandpa was right. However, he wasn't sure how he could test whether his schoolmates were real friends or not, so he asked his grandpa. The old man answered, “I have just exactly what you need. It's in my room. Wait a minute.” The old man left, soon returning as if(好像) carrying something in his hand, but Mike could see nothing there.

    “Take it. It's a very special chair. Because it's invisible, it will be hard for you to sit on it. However, if you manage to sit on it, you can use the chair's magic power to tell who your real friends are.”

    Mike took the strange invisible chair to school. At break time he asked everyone to form a circle, and he put himself in the middle, with his chair.

    “Nobody moves. You're about to see something amazing,” said Mike. Then he tried sitting on the chair. Having difficulty seeing it, he missed and fell to the ground. Everyone had a pretty good laugh. “Wait, wait,” said Mike, making another try. But again he missed the chair.

    Mike didn't give up. He kept trying to sit on the magic chair. Finally, he did it. This time he felt himself in mid-air. Then he experienced the magic that his grandpa had been talking about. Looking around, Mike saw George, Lucas and Diana holding him up, so he wouldn't fall. But some schoolmates whom he had regarded as friends had done nothing but made fun of him. Mike was quite thankful to his grandpa, who helped him test who his true friends were.

    A farmer was put in prison(监狱). One day, he got a letter from his wife. "I am worried about our farm," she wrote. "It's time to plant potatoes, but I can't do all the digging(挖) by myself." The farmer thought over and then had an idea. He wrote to his wife, "Don't dig the fields. This is where my gold(金子) is. Don't plant potatoes until I come home." A few days later, the farmer got another letter from his wife. It said, "Two days ago, about ten prison guards(监狱看守) came to our fields. It looked as if they were looking for something. They have dug our field." The farmer wrote to his wife at once. "Now you can plant our potatoes," he wrote.