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Lesson 3
Who Took the Money?
Text A
Mr Smith gave his wife ten pounds for her birthday-ten pretty pound notes. So the day after her birthday, Mrs Smith went shopping. She queued for a bus, got on and sat down next to an old lady. After a while, she noticed that the old lady's handbag was open. Inside it, she saw a wad of pound notes exactly like the one her husband had given her. So she quickly looked into her own bag- the notes had gone!
Mrs Smith was sure that the old lady who was sitting next to her had stolen them. She thought she would have to call the police; but, as she disliked making a fuss and getting people into trouble, she decided to take back the money from the old lady's handbag and say nothing more about it. She looked round the bus to make sure nobody was watching, then she carefully put her hand into the old lady's bag , took the notes and put them in her own bag.
When she got home that evening, she showed her husband the beautiful hat she had bought.
´How did you pay for it?' he asked.
´With the money you gave me for my birthday, of course,' she replied.
´Oh? What's that, then?' he asked, as he pointed to a wad of ten pound notes on the table.
Text B
'Goodbye, darling,' said Mr Mackin. 'I'll be late tonight.' Poor George, she thought. He was always in a hurry in the morning, and it wasn't unusual for him to come home late at night. He worked for a shoe company in Lceds. and therc was such a lot of work that he normally staycd in the office till seven or cight.
When George had left the house Mrs Mackin sat down. in an armchair and turned on the radio. It was a few minutes past eight , and she heard the last words of the news :'...wman who escaped from I.ceds prison yesterday is still free. The police warn you not to open your door to strangers. '
She turned off the radio. The housework was waiting for her. Shc made the beds and washed the dishes. There wasn't auy shopping to do. and so she thought for a moment of all the Work in the garden.
The Mackins lived in a house with a large garden in a suburb of Leeds. Behind the garden there were some trees. and then the cpen fields.
Suddenly Mrs Mackin remembered the news. She laughed uneasily. That prison is only 15 miles away, she thought. She didn't work in the garden, she mended her husband 's shirts instead And she care.fully lockcd the front door and closed all the windows.
It was getting dark. She turned on the lights in the livingroom.Thcn she noticed that she had turned on the lights in most of the roonss in the house.
'How silly I am!' she said nervously and went into the other rooms and turned the leghts on.
The person at the door said something loudly. but she was so frightened that she dien't understand a word.
Additional Information
Do you believe in ghosts? I don't, eitlter-or at least I didn't until I heard a strange story the other day from Mr Mike Paton, of 19 Marlborough llill.
It all began on November 28, whcn Mr Paton's eight-ycar-old son, Bob , was playing in the big back garden of his parents' house. He met an old man with a long white beard. The old man told Bob he was builcling the underground railway there, but Bob didn't believe him. Bob told me afterwards that he knew the underground ran under Marlborough Hill itself. The old man said there had been an accident the day before. Then he went away.
At first the Patons didn't believe Bob's story. Mrs Paton told me that Bob often made up stories about ghosts and monsters, like other children of his age. But Mr Paton was curious and decided that he would go to the library to check up on the facts.
He found that the railway compapy had started to build the line to the west of Marlborough Hill in 1881. but they had run into an underground river. Ten workmen had died in an accident and the Company had changed the direction of the line and built the present tunnel under Marlborough Hill. At first I didn't believe Mr Paton's storv either, so I did some research myself.
Inspector Bright of the Metropolitan Police said it was natural to find tramps in the district in winter, but no one had reported one answering the description I had given him since last August.
Mr Joseph Griffiths of London Transport checked the files on the accident for me. He told me that the accident had apparently taken place on or very near the junction of Marlborough Hill and Woodstock Avenue on 27 November 1881. Mr Paton's house stands on the corner!
The source of this extraordinary story was not affected by the news. 'I told Mummy it was true,' young Bob Paton told me yesterday. When I left the house he was playing happily with his toy cars-in the garden!
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