One hot summer day a fox was walking through an orchard. He stopped before a bunch of grapes. They were ripe and juicy.

"I'm just feeling thirsty," he thought. So he backed up a few paces, got a running start, jumped up, but could not reach the grapes.

He walked back. One, two, three, he jumped up again, but still, he missed the grapes.

The fox tried again and again, but never succeeded. At last he decided to give it up.

He walked away with his nose in the air, and said“I am sure they are sour.”

狐狸和葡萄

●一个炎热的夏日，狐狸走过一个果园，他停在一大串熟透而多汁的葡萄前。

●狐狸想：“我正口渴呢。”于是他后退了几步，向前一冲，跳起来，却无法够到葡萄。

●狐狸后退又试。一次，两次，三次，但是都没有得到葡萄。

●狐狸试了一次又一次，都没有成功。最后，他决定放弃，他昂起头,边走边说：“葡萄还没有成熟，我敢肯定它是酸的。”

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　　1,Two birls

Teacher: Here are two birds, one is a swallow, the other is sparrow. Now who can tell us which is which?

Student: I cannot point out but I know the answer.

Teacher: Please tell us.

Student: The swallow is beside the sparrow and the sparrow is beside the swallow.

两只鸟

老师： 这儿有两只鸟，一只是麻雀。谁能指出哪只是燕子，哪只是麻雀吗？

学生：我指不出，但我知道答案。

老师：请说说看。

学生：燕子旁边的就是麻雀，麻雀旁边的就是燕子。

2. The Fish Net

"Can you tell me what fish net is made, Ann?"

"A lot of little holes tied together with strings." replied the little girl.

鱼网

"你能告诉我鱼网是什么做的吗，安？" 老师发问道。

"把许多小孔用绳子栓在一起就成了鱼网了。" 小女孩回答道。

3. The New Teacher

George comes from school on the first of September.

"George, how did you like your new teacher?" asked his mother.

"I didn\'t like her, Mother, because she said that three and three were six and then she said that two and four were six too....."

新老师

9月1日， 乔治放学回到家里。

"乔治，你喜欢你们的新老师吗？" 妈妈问。

"妈妈，我不喜欢，因为她说3加3得6, 可后来又说2加4也得6。"

4. A physics Examination

Once in a physics examination, Nick finished the first question very soon, while his classmates were thinking it hard.

The question was: When it thunders why do we see the lighting first, then hear the thunderrolls?

Nick\'s answer: Because our eyes are before ears.

一次物理考试

在一次物理考试时，当同学们都还在苦思冥想时，尼克很快就答好了第一个问题。

这个问题是：为什么在打雷时，我们总是先看到闪电后听到雷声？

尼克的回答是：因为眼睛在前，耳朵在后。

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　　Tom’s Birthday
It was Tom’s birthday,and he was five years old.He got quite a lot of nice birthday presents from his family,and one of them was a beartiful big drum.
“Who gave him thay thing?”answered Tom’s mother.
“Oh,”said his father.
Of course,Tom liked his drum very much.He made terrible noise with is,but his mother did not mind.His father was working during the day,and Tom was in bed when he got home in the evening,so he did not hear the noise.
But one of the neighbours did not like noise at all.So one morning a few days later she took a sharp knife and went to Tom’s house while he was hitting his drum.She said to him,”Hello,Tom,do you know,there’s something very nice inside your drum.Here is a knitf.Open the frum and let’s find it.”

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　　*必须站着马克·吐温有一次到一个小城市演讲，他决定在演讲之前先理理发。
“您喜欢我们这个城市吗？”理发师问他。
“啊！喜欢，这是一个很好的地方。”马克·吐温说。“您来得很巧，”理发师继续
说，“马克·吐温今天晚上要发表演讲，我想您一定是想去听听的喽？”
“是的。”马克·吐温说。
“您弄到票了吗？”
“还没有。”
“这可太遗憾了！”理发师耸了耸肩膀，两手一摊，惋惜地说：“那您只好从头到尾站
着了，因为那里不会有空座位。”“对！”幽默大师说，“和马克·吐温在一起可真糟糕，
他一演讲我就只能永远站着。”

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　　请参考：
“To bell the cat” means to do something dangers, something that might end in disaster灾难.
The expression comes from an old story. A family of mice老鼠 could not leave the hole to get food because of its fear of a cat. The mice decided to tie a bell around the cat's neck颈. The bell would ring as the cat moved. So the mice would always know where the cat was. All agreed it was a wonderful plan. That is until one wise old mouse asked, “Who will bell the cat?”
Bell the cat，给猫系上铃铛，这当然是没什么难的，但如果联想一个古老的寓言里，“给猫系上铃铛”还是一件很冒险的事情呢！故事的发生是这样的：一窝老鼠因为怕猫，结果饿的要命。于是它们认为最好的办法是在猫的脖子上系一个铃铛。这样，铃铛一响，它们就知道猫来了。大家都觉得那是个好主意，但是有一只老的、比较聪明的老鼠问，“谁去给猫系上铃铛呢？”。当然“老鼠给猫系铃铛”是奢谈，但如果真的有个老鼠敢为猫系上铃铛，那它也算是“为救众多的老鼠”而“奋不顾身”了，不过最终也是得到死无葬身之地的结果。不知道现在的社会中是不是：It's very diffcult to get a man who will bell the cat. 很难找到危险时刻能够挺身而出的人。
所以bell the cat就表示“为众人承担风险、替别人冒险”的意思。

还有参考的：
“to be somebody's cat's paw.”成为某人的猫爪，被某人利用 It means to be fooled in to doing someone else's dirty work. It comes from an old story about a monkey. He wants some nuts heating on a fire. The monkey tries to steal the nuts. But he burns his fingers. So, he seizes the foot or paw of a cat and he uses that to pull the nuts out of the fire.

“Fat Cat” describes someone who is rich. You often hear it during political campaigns政治竞选. Some fat cats give lots of money to politicians they hoped will be elected将被选举上. American jazz musicians have used the word “cat” to mean a man.

A sharp cat is a man who is dressed in the latest fashionable clothing. The great American horn player Louis Armstrong used the expression this way many years ago. Armstrong said, “I had on a new cowboy hat牛仔帽, a fine black suit, and new shining leather shoes皮鞋. I was a sharp cat.”