Dutch Cigarettes

One day a Frenchman went abroad for his holiday. He had an opportunity of visiting some countries and stayed a few weeks in Holland. He went sightseeing a lot and liked Dutch towns very much. The country impressed him immensely. Although the weather was not very good, as it often rained, he enjoyed his stay. He lived in one of the best hotels and was satisfied with everything.

Once he met a man who knew Dutch meals very well, so he was invited to a restaurant where they served national dishes. The Frenchman liked them very much and they spent an unforgettable time there. But what he liked best of all were Dutch cigarettes. He smoked them daily. After a fortnight he went back to France. He bought a lot of cigarettes for his own use and put them into his suitcase. When he arrived at the border, he was to go through the Customs. He found out that cigarettes were liable to duty, but he didn't want to pay, so he took some of them and put them into his hat, which he had on. He thought that nobody would notice that and asked the porter to take his luggage to the Customs House, where the clerk was to inspect it. The Frenchman was about to go through the Customs when he learned that the Director of the Customs House was his old friend whom he had not seen for ages. The Frenchman went to him, and they were very glad to see each other. They had a nice talk and drank a few toasts to their companions.

Some time later they went up to the Customs officer, and the Director said, "Let this gentleman pass. Don't examine his luggage." The Frenchman was so excited that he took off his hat to thank his friend forgetting about the cigarettes, which fell on the floor.

Dictation 4

A Present from the Son

Long ago there lived an old woman in England. She had a son who was a sailor. He went to different countries and always brought gifts for his old mother. Once he went to China and bought some tea. At that time tea was very expensive and only rich people could buy and drink it. So

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the old woman was very happy to have such a nice present. But she didn't know what to do with it as she had never purchased tea before. She thought it was a vegetable. She told her friends about the tea and invited them to try it with her. At last the day of the tea-party came. The woman called her guests to the dining-room and put a big dish of tea leaves on the table. The guests began to eat them with salt. Nobody liked them but didn't tell the woman about that. Some time later the sailor came into the room. When he saw everybody eating leaves, he smiled.

"What are you doing? Why are you eating them? Where is the tea?"

"Here it is, my son," answered the old woman.

"And where is the water in which you have boiled the leaves?" asked the man laughing.

"I threw it away, of course," answered the woman.

Dictation 5

Does It Make Any Difference?

Once our friend John was walking down the beach at sunset, when he saw another man in the distance. Our friend noticed the man lean down, pick something up and throw it into the water. In a few minutes the man leaned down again, picked something up and threw it again into the ocean.

As John came nearer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and then throwing them back into the water. John came up to the man and said, "Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing."

"I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they will die up here."

"I understand," John answered, "but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can't possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. Can't you see that you can't make a difference?"

The other man smiled, picked up another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he said, "Made a difference to that one!"

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Dictation 6

Little Rose

Two months before Christmas our nine-year –old daughter Rose told us that she wanted a bicycle. As Christmas got nearer she seemed to forget about her wish. And we bought her a beautiful doll. Then, much to our surprise, on December 23d, Rose said that she really wanted a bike more than anything else.

It was just too late with all the details of preparing Christmas dinner and buying last-minute gifts, to take the time to choose the "right bike" for our little girl. So, here we were – Christmas Eve around 9 o'clock p.m., with Rose sleeping happily in her beds. We could now think only of the bicycle, we felt that we were bad parents.

"What if I make a little bicycle out of wood and write a note that she could exchange it for a real bike?" her dad asked. His idea was that as she was "such a big girl", it should be much better for her to pick it out herself. So he spent the next several hours at night working with a piece of wood to create a very small model bike.

On Christmas morning Rose opened the little yellow box with the beautiful red and white bike and the note in it. She read the note aloud. "Does it mean that I must exchange this little bike that Daddy made for me for a real one?" she asked. "Yes," I answered.

Rose had tears in her eyes when she said, "I will never exchange this beautiful bicycle that Daddy made for me. I'd rather keep this than get a real bike."

We were rather surprised but at that moment we could move heaven and earth to buy her every bicycle on the planet.

Dictation 7