Very often people from the other rooms of the house came in. They talked to Raymond and laughed with him. Raymond liked their laughter. It was the laughter of friends; it was music to him.

At last Raymond was big enough to go into street without Big Lannie. It was a small street, and very soon everybody who lived there knew Raymond. These people were friends. They talked and laughed with him. Raymond liked their laughter.

Chinese vase

When I was a child I loved visiting my grandmother. I thought her house was as beautiful as a palace and the garden seemed bigger than a park.

As I grew older the house and garden seemed smaller, but I still loved visiting the old lady. There were so many lovely things to look at in the house.

Sometimes I played with the doll’s house which was older than Grandmother herself; at other times I looked at books which were lovelier and more interesting that my children’s books at home.

I loved her paintings and the old clock, but most of all I loved a big Chinese vase which stood in the hall. It was taller than me, and I couldn’t see inside it. I walked round and round it looking at the beautiful ladies and the birds and flowers and trees, and Grandmother often told me stories about these ladies. She said that her grandfather had brought the vase with him when he returned from a long voyage to China.

When I married I took my sons to visit their great grandmother. They were not as interested as I was in the beautiful books and the vase. They found comics as attractive as old paintings and pop music more exciting than the old clock. They preferred playing football in the garden.

We live in a modern house, and I’m afraid my husband and I often nag at the children. “Don’t make the new carpet dirty, Paul!”. “Be careful with the new table, Philip!”.

Before she died, Grandmother gave me the vase I loved so much. It looked beautiful in our modern hall.

One day I came home from the shops. The boys met me at the door. “I’m as strong as George Bes, Mummy”, said Paul. “I got a goal and broke the vase”.

Phillip tried to be more diplomatic than Paul. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? You told us it wasn’t new. You aren’t cross, are you?”

А ноliday incident

It happened while Harris and his wife were riding through Holland during their holidays. They were riding on one of those bicycles for two people, what they call a tandem bicycles. The road was very stony and without turning his head, Harris said to his wife, “Hold on!”

But Mrs. Harris thought he said “Jump off!” Why she thought he said “Jump off” when he said “Hold on”, is difficult to say. He insists that she didn’t hear him right, and she insists that he didn’t tell her clearly what to do. Mrs. Harris thought she heard him tell her to jump off, and she jumped off, while. Harris went on, not knowing that she was no longer behind him.

At first she thought he wanted to go up the hill alone, with the purpose of showing what a fine cyclist he was. She thought he would jump off when he came to the top of the hill and wait for her. But when she saw him pass the top without stopping, she was surprised, then angry and at last worried. She shouted, but he went on and never turned his head. Suddenly, she felt she was all alone in the world, and she sat down and began to cry. She had no money and she did not know the Dutch language. People passed and looked at her kindly. She tried to make them understand what had happened. They thought she had lost something, but could not understand what. They took her to the nearest village.

All this time Harris continued on his way with much enjoyment. He went on for about five miles, moving very fast, when a strange feeling that something was wrong began to grow in him. He turned his head and looked behind him$ but there was only space there, nothing else. He jumped off and looked back up the road; there was nobody there. He got on the bicycle and rode back up the three roads met. He got off and tried to remember which road he had taken on his way down.

As nobody could help him, Harris got on the bicycle again and took the middle road. Half – way up he met two young women and asked if they had seen his wife. They asked him what she looked like. He did not know enough Dutch to describe her; all he could tell them was that she was a very beautiful woman. This was not enough for them; they thought many women were beautiful. They asked him how she was dressed, but he could not remember what she was wearing that day. The young women told him to go to the police station in the next town. Harris found the place at last.

The police told him to write down a full description of his wife and when and where he had lost her. He did not know. All he could tell them was the name of the village where they had had lunch. He knew that he had had her with him then, and that they had started from there together.

Quite naturally, the police began to ask several questions. First, was she really his wife? Second, had he really lost her? Third, why had he lost her?

But the didn’t refuse to help him. In the evening, they brought her to him. The meeting was not a pleasant one. Mrs. Harris had never been a good actress and had a great difficulty in controlling her feeling. This time, she herself says, she did not even try.

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