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Barney Tilford, my unemployed friend, came
up with more get-rich-quick schemes than anyone I'd ever known.
Now he
was telling
me about his latest one.
Our conversation went like this... |
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TILFORD: |
Oh
God, DeLator.
This time I'm going to make us both rich!
|
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DELATOR: |
Oh?
What is it this time? |
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TILFORD: |
Well,
you've heard of the caveman paintings
in the Cave of Font de Gaume in France? Well,
my associate, Sebastian Delsolo, has found the greatest ever example of
prehistoric art in a cave on a farm in Spain.
|
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DELATOR: |
Oh...
What part of Spain is it in?
|
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TILFORD: |
I
can't divulge the exact location yet. But we can buy the farm
for
next
to nothing, my friend. The farmer doesn't suspect
anything. Think of the fortune we can make from tourists! |
|
Then Barney passed three photos to
me and said...
|
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TILFORD: |
Look!
Sebastian had to push through subterranean water channels as far
down as four thousand feet to photograph those drawings!
|
|
The
first photo Barney showed me was of a drawing of a woolly
rhinoceros; the second was of hunters
attacking a dinosaur; and the third was of a drawing of a charging
mammoth. Then he continued...
|
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TILFORD: |
The
cave artist worked by light from a stone lamp that was filled with
fat and fitted with a wick
of moss. He used pieces of red and yellow ochre for
drawing, and he ground them
and mixed them with animal fat for painting.
|
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DELATOR: |
How
much would it cost to buy the farm? |
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TILFORD: |
Fifty
thousand dollars. But you can have a
third share of everything for a mere ten thousand
dollars, my friend.
|
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DELATOR: |
A
third of nothing, you mean. I won't give you a dime!
|
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Source:
English Teaching Forum |
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TRY TO SOLVE THIS MYSTERY |
 |
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Why
didn't Dr. Delator want to buy a share
of his friend's money-making scheme? |
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came
up with:
proposed; suggested
(venía con)
get-rich-quick schemes:
plans
to get rich quickly (ideas para hacerse rico rápidamente)
the
greatest ever:
the
greatest one that has ever existed (las más grande que haya
existido)
caveman paintings: artistic compositions made by prehistoric
men (pinturas rupestres)
hunters: people who hunt game (cazadores)
charging:
excited, agitated (enfurecido)
for next to nothing: for very little money (por
poco dinero)
|
fat: grease (grasa animal)
wick
of moss:
a cord of moss
(una mecha de musgo)
ground
them: powderized them (las pulverizó)
a third share: one-third of the whole (30%; un
tercio)
a dime: a
ten-cent piece; the meaning is "I
won't give you anything!"
(un céntimo) |
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and recording excerpts remain the right of the original copyright holder, and no infringment is
here intended / Todo
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