How the hope always be there

LESSON I

Hob Gives His First Impressions of England [The students whom we have met in Books I and II, LUCILLE, PRIEDA, OLAF, JAN, PEDRO and HOB, are back again with MR. PRIESTLEY, their teacher, in his

study.]

HOB: Do you remember, sir, that at our last lesson

before the holidays, you promised to let me tell

the story of my first day in England?

MR. PRIESTLEY: I remember it very well; and so now,

at our very first lesson, we are all waiting to hear what you have to tell us.

HOB: Thank you, sir. Well, my first impressions of England are connected with food- LUCILLE: You don't need to tell us that! HOB:... and, strange to say, they are of how an

English breakfast beat me.

FRIEDA: You don't really expect us to believe that, do

you, Hob? HOB: Well, it's quite true. Of course, it was some time ago and, though I say it myself, I'm a better man now than I was then, but, honestly, I was beaten. But let me begin at the beginning.

ESSENTIAL ENGLISH

When I left the train at Victoria Station my first impression was of rain and fog and people with umbrellas. A taxi-cab, which might have been used by Lot and his family as they left Sodom and Gomorrah, took me and my luggage and struggled bravely through the traffic. And what traffic and what crowds! I had never be- lieved my geography teacher when he told us there were more people in London than in the whole of my country. I thought he had just said it to make his lesson more interesting, but I believed him now.

However, I got to my little hotel at last, and the first thing that took my eye was the porter, a big fat man with a round pink face like an advertisement for babies' food. Then I met the manager. He rubbed his hands all the time as if he was washing them, and smiled without stop- ping. What he said I could not understand, though I had learned English at school. I said to 

LESSON ONE

myself, "Perhaps he doesn't speak it very well- some English people don't." But I told him my name, and he smiled again and told one of the little boys with brass buttons to show me up to my room. Ten minutes later I was lying in a hot bath washing off the last dusty reminders of the Continent; another ten minutes and I was under the bedclothes and fast asleep.

When I woke next morning, I felt hungrier than I had ever felt in my life before; I seemed to have a hole instead of a stomach. I dressed quickly and hurried down to the dining-room. It was a big room with six tall windows and the ugliest wallpaper I had ever seen. However, I had been told that the hotel was not beautiful but that you were better fed there than in any other hotel in London; and that was what I wanted just then.

The waiter came hurrying up. Before I came downstairs I had prepared myself very carefully for what I must say. I had looked three times in my dictionary to make sure that "breakfast" really meant "breakfast". I had tried to get the right pronunciation and had stood in front of a mirror and twisted my mouth until it ached.

The waiter asked me something I could not

understand, but I spoke only my one prepared

word, "BREAKFAST". He looked at me in a

puzzled way, so I repeated it. Still he did not

understand. It was unbelievable that English

people didn't understand their own language.

The waiter shook his head, bowed and went

ESSENTIAL ENGLISH

away, but he came back in a minute and brought the manager with him. I was feeling slightly annoyed, but I said, "BREAKFAST". The manager smiled and washed his hands, but looked as helpless as the waiter, so I took out a pencil and wrote on the table napkin, "Break- fast". I have never seen such surprised faces in my life so perhaps I did not pronounce it correctly after all.

A little later the waiter brought a tray with tea, toast, butter and marmalade-enough to feed a small army and went away. But I was hungry, and I left nothing; I am sure I drank at least two pints of tea, ate almost a loaf of toasted bread and large quantities of butter and marmalade with it. When the waiter came back I thought his face showed a little surprise, but you can never tell what a waiter's face really shows. In another minute he brought another tray with a huge por- tion of bacon and eggs. He must have misunder- stood me, but I thought it was no use explaining to people who don't understand their own language, so I just set to work on the bacon and eggs and ate on steadily, wondering all the time whether I could possibly clear that plate.

Well, I finished the bacon and eggs, and was just trying to get up out of the chair when here was the waiter again with another tray. This time it was a whole fish in a thick white sauce. Surely this must be a joke, I thought; but before I could tell him anything, he had put down the tray and gone away. There was nothing for it but to