CHAPTER I. THE THREE FRIENDS.

A child and a dog sat very close to the fast-expiring embers of a small fire in a shabby London attic¹.

 

The dog was very old, with palsied, shaking limbs, eyes half-blind, and an appearance about his whole person of almost disreputable ugliness and decrepitude², He was a large white-and-liver-colored[Pg 174] dog, of no particular breed, and certainly of no particular beauty. Never, even in his best days, could this dog have been at all good-looking. The child who crouched³ close to him was small and thin. He was a pale child, with big, sorrowful eyes, and that shrunken appearance of the whole little frame which proclaims but too clearly that bread-and-milk have not sufficiently⁴ nourished it.

 

He sat very close to the old dog, half-supporting himself against him; his head was bent⁵ forward on his little chest—he was half-asleep.

 

A little apart from the dog and the sleepy child stood a very bright boy, a boy with rosy⁶ cheeks and sparkling eye. He poised⁷ himself for a moment on one leg, kicked off the snow from his ragged⁸ trousers with the other, then flinging his cap and an old broom into a corner of the attic, he sang out in a clear, ringing tone:

 

"Hillow! Pepper and Trusty, is that h'all the welcome yer 'ave to give to a feller?"

 

At the first sound of his voice the dog feebly[Pg 175] wagged his tail and the little child started to his feet.

 

"Hillow!" he answered with a pitiful attempt at the elder boy's cheerfulness; "I 'opes as yer 'ave brought h'in some supper, Tom."

 

"See yere," said Tom, just turning back a morsel⁹ of his ragged jacket to show what really was still a pocket. This pocket bunched out now in a most suggestive manner, and Pepper, thrusting in his tiny hand, pulled from it the following heterogeneous¹⁰ mixture: an old bone—very bare of even the pretense¹¹ of meat; an orange; some nuts; a piece of moldy¹² bread, and a nice little crisp loaf; also twopence and a halfpenny.

 

"Ain't it prime, Pepper?" said the elder boy. "Yere's the bone for old Trusty, and the broken bread, and the pretty little loaf, and the nuts, and th' orange, for you and me."

 

"Oh, Tom! where did you get the nuts?"

 

"They were throwing 'em to a dancing monkey, and an old 'oman gave me a handful h'all to myself. I say, didn't I clutch 'em!"

 

"Well, let's crunch¹³ 'em up now," said Pepper,[Pg 176] whose face had grown quite bright with anticipation¹⁴.

 

"And give Trusty his bone," said Tom. "I picked it h'out o' the gutter¹⁵, and washed it at the pump. 'Tis a real juicy bone—full o' marrow¹⁶. Yere, old feller! Don't he move his lazy h'old sides quickly now, Pepper?"

 

"Yes," said Pepper, clapping his tiny hands.

1 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？

2 decrepitude   

n.衰老；破旧

参考例句：

• Staying youth can be likened to climbing steep hill,while negligence will lead to decrepitude overnight. 保持青春已如爬坡，任由衰老会一泻千里。
• The building had a general air of decrepitude and neglect.这座建筑看上去破旧失修，无人照管。

3 crouched   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
• The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身，准备猛扑。

4 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

5 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

6 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

7 poised   

a.摆好姿势不动的

参考例句：

• The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋，准备俯冲。
• Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张，手悬在电话机上。

8 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

9 morsel   

n.一口，一点点

参考例句：

• He refused to touch a morsel of the food they had brought.他们拿来的东西他一口也不吃。
• The patient has not had a morsel of food since the morning.从早上起病人一直没有进食。

10 heterogeneous   

adj.庞杂的；异类的

参考例句：

• There is a heterogeneous mass of papers in the teacher's office.老师的办公室里堆满了大批不同的论文。
• America has a very heterogeneous population.美国人口是由不同种族组成的。

11 pretense   

n.矫饰，做作，借口

参考例句：

• You can't keep up the pretense any longer.你无法继续伪装下去了。
• Pretense invariably impresses only the pretender.弄虚作假欺骗不了真正的行家。

12 moldy   

adj.发霉的

参考例句：

• She chucked the moldy potatoes in the dustbin.她把发霉的土豆扔进垃圾箱。
• Oranges can be kept for a long time without going moldy.橙子可以存放很长时间而不腐烂。

13 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

14 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

15 gutter   

n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟

参考例句：

• There's a cigarette packet thrown into the gutter.阴沟里有个香烟盒。
• He picked her out of the gutter and made her a great lady.他使她脱离贫苦生活，并成为贵妇。

16 marrow   

n.骨髓；精华；活力

参考例句：

• It was so cold that he felt frozen to the marrow. 天气太冷了，他感到寒冷刺骨。
• He was tired to the marrow of his bones.他真是累得筋疲力尽了。