宁莎选注

　　Mr Jenkins had a sports car<注1> which he liked driving very fast. The problem was that there were speed limits<注2> on all the roads, but when he thought he could let the car go without being caught by the police, he did so.

　　Mrs Jenkins did not enjoy it when her husband drove very fast, especially as Mr Jenkins had had several accidents in his last car, in one of which Mrs Jenkins had had an arm broken. Mr Jenkins had also twice been caught speeding on a motorway, and he had had to go to court and pay a fine each time.<注3>

　　"Unless you're more careful," his wife said, "you'll lose your licence."

　　One evening Mr and Mrs Jenkins were invited to a party at the house of some new friends. It was about forty kilometres from the Jenkins' home, and when Mr Jenkins looked on the map, he saw that there was a good main road<注4> most of the way, but not a motorway. "That's good," he thought. "I can do it in twenty minutes if there are no police about."

　　They started out, and Mr Jenkins drove along at his usual high speed, watching out for police cars in his mirror from time to time to make sure he was safe.<注5>

　　They reached their friends' house without any trouble and had a good time at the party. Then at half past ten, after dark, they began the return journey. Again Mr Jenkins drove very fast through the night, although it was raining.

　　"You'll have another accident unless you slow down," his wife warned him, but he did not listen. Suddenly he heard a police siren<注6> just behind him, and the car following him turned on a blue light.

　　Mr Jenkins stopped at once and got out of his car angrily. "Now look here, officer," Mr Jenkins began at once, "I've been keeping carefully just under seventy kilometres an hour. I'm sure of that because I've been looking at my speedometer every few seconds for the past twenty minutes."

　　"Is that so, sir?" the policeman said, taking a book<注7> out of his pocket. "Well, we didn't stop you for that. We stopped you to tell you that one of your rear lights<注8> isn't working. But if you were doing9 nearly seventy kilometres an hour, I'll have to give you a speeding ticket,10 because you're only allowed to do sixty along this road."