Lesson 73

Children who play truant from school are unimaginative.
逃学的孩子们缺乏想象力。
A quiet day's fishing, or eight hours in a cinema seeing the same film over and over again, is usually as far as they get.
去安静地钓一天鱼，或者在电影院里连着看八小时同一部电影，通常就是他们所能做到的极致了。
They have all been put to shame by a boy who, while playing truant, travelled 1,600 miles.
一个在逃学期间游历了1,600英里的男孩，使他们所有人皆感到汗颜。
He hitchhiked to Dover and, towards evening, went into a boat to find somewhere to sleep.
他搭便车到了多佛，傍晚时分，进了一艘船找地方睡觉。
When he woke up next morning, he discovered that the boat had, in the meantime, travelled to Calais.
当他第二天早上醒来时，他发现那艘船在此期间已经行驶到了加来。
No one noticed the boy as he crept off.
当那个男孩溜走时，没有人注意到他。
From there, he hitchhiked to Paris in a lorry.
从那里开始，他搭便车坐货车去了巴黎。
The driver gave him a few biscuits and a cup of coffee and left him just outside the city.
司机给了他几块饼干和一杯咖啡，并把他送到了城外。
The next car the boy stopped did not take him into the centre of Paris as he hoped it would, but to Perpignan on the French-Spanish border.
男孩拦下的下一辆车并没有像他希望的那样带他去巴黎中心，而是把他带到了法西边界上的佩皮尼昂。
There he was picked up by a policeman and sent back to England by the local authorities.
他在那里被一名警察带走，并被当地当局送回了英国。
He has surely set up a record for the thousands of children who dream of evading school.
对于成千上万梦想逃学的孩子来说，他确实创下了一项纪录。