One morning, Mr Black was driving in the country and looking for a small hotel. When he saw an old woman on the side of the road, he stopped his car and said to the old woman, “I want to go to the Sun Hotel. Do you know it?”　

“Yes,” the old woman said,“I will show you the way.” She got into Mr Black's car and they drove about twelve miles. When they came to a small house, the old woman said, “stop here!” Mr, Black stopped and looked at the house.“But this isn't a hotel.” He said to the old woman.

 “No”the old woman answered, “This is my house. And I'll show you the way to the hotel. Turn round and go back nine miles. Then you'll see the hotel.”

      One day a farmer went out for a walk with his little son. The farmer wore a pair of wrong shoes. One had thick sole(厚鞋底) but the other didn't. He began to walk and then his feet hurt. When he was just out of the house, he turned to his son and said, “Why is one of my legs longer than the other today?”

      The son looked at his father's legs carefully as he was walking and then laughed, “Oh, no, Daddy. Your legs are all right. You're wearing the wrong shoes.” The farmer was very happy to hear that and said to himself, “What a clever son!” Then he asked his son to go back and got the other pair of shoes for him. The farmer had only two pairs of shoes.

      When the son ran back to the house, he found that the other pair was also a wrong pair. He had to return to his father with nothing in his hands and said, “It's no use changing them, Daddy! The shoes at home are not a pair, either!”

    Welcome to My Q-zone!

    Hello, I'm Wan Fang. I am a 14-year-old Chinese girl. My home is in Shanghai. I want to have friends from other countries. I like singing, dancing and playing the violin. I also like swimming, but I can't swim well. I like watching TV, but my parents only let me watch TV on weekends. I don't like playing computer games. I think they are boring.

    Do you like me? If you want to be my friend, please write to me. My e-mail address is lvyhappy@yahoo.com.

    My mother is a teacher. On weekdays, she gives lessons at school and on Saturdays she works in clubs. On Sundays, she is still busy.

On Sunday morning, mum gets up at six. She cooks breakfast for us first. And then it's time for cleaning. After that, she has breakfast with father and me. At 9, she goes to buy food for lunch in the supermarket. She can have a short rest after lunch. In the afternoon, mum doesn't go out. She helps me with my lessons. She does some reading, too.

    Mother watches TV at about 7 when she finishes (完成) the housework. But at that time she is always tired and falls asleep (睡着) in the sofa sometimes.

    I live in Mentone, a quiet, simple, restful place, where the rich never come. I met Theophile Magnan, a retired, rich, old man from Lyons yesterday. In the Hotel des Anglais. Theophile looked sad and dreamy, and didn't talk with anybody else. Which brought me back to the past.

A long time ago, Francois Millet. Claude, Carl and I were young artists — very young artists — in fact.

    Yes, Francois Millet. The great French artist, was my friend.

Millet wasn't any greater than we were at that time. He didn't have any fame, even in his own village.

    We were all poor though we had stacks and stacks of as good pictures as anybody in Europe painted. Once a person ever offered four francs for Millet's "Angelus", which he intended to sell for eight.

    It was a fact in human history that a great artist would never be acknowledged* until after he was starved and dead. His pictures climbed to high prices after his death.

    Then we made a decision that one of us must die, to save the others and himself.

    Millet was elected to die.

    During the next three months Millet painted with all his might, enlarged his stock all he could, not pictures, not sketches, studies, parts of studies, fragments of studies, of course, with his cipher *  on them.

    They were the things to be sold.

    Carl went to Paris to start the work of building up Millet's name. Claude and I went to sell Millet's small pictures and to build up his name as well.

    We made Millet a master. I always said to my customer, "I am a fool to sell a picture of Francois Millet's at all, for he is not going to live three months, and when he dies his pictures can't be had for love or money."

    Claude and I took care to spread that little fact as far as we could.

Carl made friends with the correspondents, and got Millet's condition reported to England and all over the continent, and America, and everywhere.

    The sad end came at last, Millet died, not really.  He became Theophile Magnan.

    The pictures went up. There's a man in Paris today who owns seventy Millet pictures. He paid us two million francs for them. Do you still remember the "Angelus"? Carl sold it for twenty—two hundred francs. And as for the bushels of sketches and studies which Millet produced in the last six weeks, well, it would astonish you to know the figure we sell them at nowadays.

    We are no longer artists and Millet dead.