Earl was looking at the wall outside the pub（酒馆）. The pub's name, The Old Swan, was on the wall. Next to the name was a wooden ship's wheel and in the middle of the wheel was the name of a ship, HMS Swan. The wheel was old, Earl could tell.

   The next morning, Earl asked to see Tony Thatcher. The Old Swan was Tony's pub. He took Earl to his office while Candy had a coffee outside by the river. Earl said he could give Tony a lot of money for the ship's wheel. He told Tony that Benjamin Cooper, his grandfather, went to America on the ship HMS Swan. But Tony said no at first. After all, the wheel was very old and it was part of the pub's past.

    "You can think of the past, Mr. Thatcher - can I call you Tony? - or you can think of today. And with the money, Tony, you can buy a good car. Maybe a new Jaguar? And, as I've told you, the wheel is part of my family's past too. So you could say it's going back home, in a way. So, what do you say?"

   A month later, Earl and Candy were smiling as they looked at the wall of their house in Houston, Texas. Earl thought to himself that, at last, he had a piece of his family's past. He was happy.

    In Portsmouth, Tony Thatcher was happy, too. He was putting his new Jaguar into his large garage（车库）. He was careful not to drive into any of the six ship's wheels in the garage. A friend of his made the wheels for him. They were just like the one that Earl bought. And there was another wheel on the outside wall of The Old Swan now. Old or new - Tony thought there was no way that a tourist could ever know which was which. Never in a hundred years.

    Thomas is an office clerk. Every day he is busy with his work. After a day's work he is often very tired. His wife, Katherine, has no job, so she stays at home to cook the meals. Every day he can have his dinner when he gets home from office.

    One day, Thomas came home very late because he was very busy with an important paper. He was very hungry when he got home. When he found dinner was not ready he was very angry with his wife. He shouted at her, “I'm going to have dinner in a restaurant.” “Wait for five minutes,” said his wife. “Why? Do you think that dinner will be ready in five minutes?” asked Thomas.

    "Of course not,” she answered. “But I can be ready to go with you in five minutes.”

根据下面短文内容，在文章后第1~10小题的空格里填入最恰当的单词，并将答案填写在答题纸标号为1~10的相应位置上。注意：每空一词。

    Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa， Italy. He was the oldest of five children in a worker's family. He enjoyed going to the sea when he was a young boy.

    He heard that there was a lot of gold and other valuable things in East India. He wanted to find a short way to get to the Indies by ship. On August 3， 1492， he sailed toward the west from Palos， Spain with three ships. After many days， the sailors had covered a long distance on the sea and were ready to turn around for home when they saw land， an island Columbus named San Salvador. He thought he had found the Indies and called the people he saw there “Indians”. When they got to Cuba， he thought he was in Japan. The world was a lot larger than he thought.

    In his life， he made four trips across the ocean. His 13-year-old son， Ferdinand， went with him during the last time. He returned to Spain in 1504. Columbus did not become rich as he had hoped. At the end of his life he only had a pension(退休金) the king and the queen had given him because he was the first to reach the New World. He died in 1506， still believing that he had found a new route to East India and that he had reached Asia.

    Columbus didn't get to school very much， but he learned to read and write Spanish during his travels. He also taught himself Latin because all the geography books were written in Latin. He is remembered by all not only for the New World he discovered， but also for the way he led for other explorers.