"Heavens!" exclaimed the aunt of Clovis, "here’s someone I know bearing down

游客2023-12-18  28

问题    "Heavens!" exclaimed the aunt of Clovis, "here’s someone I know bearing down on us. I can’t remember his name, but be lunched with us once in Town. Tarrington--yes, that’s it. He’s heard of the picnic I’m giving for the Princess, and he’ll cling to me like a lifebelt till I give him an invitation; then he’ll ask if he may bring all his wives and mothers and sisters with him. That’s the worst of these small watering-places; one can’t escape from anybody."
   "I’ll fight a rearguard action for you if you like to do a bolt now," volunteered Clovis; "you’ve a clear ten yards start if you don’t lose time." The aunt of Clovis responded gamely to the suggestion, and churned away like a Nile steamer, with a long brown ripple of spaniel trailing in her wake. "Pretend you don’t know him," was her parting advice, tinged with the reckless courage of the non-combatant.
   The next moment the overtures of an affably disposed gentleman were being received by Clovis with a "silent-upon a peak-in-Darien" stare which denoted an absence of all previous acquaintance with the object scrutinized. "I expect you don’t know me with my moustache," said the newcomer; "I’ve only grown it during the last two months." "On the contrary," said Clovis, "the moustache is the only thing about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt certain that I had met it somewhere before."
   "My name is Tarrington," restarted the candidate for recognition. "A very useful kind of name," said Clovis; "with a name of that sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in particular heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you were to raise a troop of light horse in a moment of national emergency, ’Tarrington’s Light Horse’ would sound quite appropriate and pulse-quickening; whereas if you were called Spoopin, for instance, the thing would be out of the question. No one, even in a moment of national emergency, could possibly belong to Spoopin’s Horse."
   The new-comer smiled weakly, as one who is not to be put off by mere flippancy, and began again with patient persistence: "I think you ought to remember my name--" "I shall," said Clovis, with an air of immense sincerity. "My aunt was asking me only this morning to suggest names for four young owls she’s just had sent her as pets. I shall call them all Tarrington; then if one or two of them die or fly away, or leave us in any of the ways that pet owls are prone to, there will be always one or two left to carry on your name. And my aunt won’t let me forget it; she will always be asking ’Have the Tarringtons had their mice? and questions of that sort. She says if you keep wild creatures in captivity you ought to see after their wants, and of course she’s quite right there."
   "I met you at luncheon at your aunt’s house once--" broke in Mr. Tarrington, pale but still resolute. "My aunt never lunches," said Clovis; "she belongs to the National Anti-Luncheon League, which is. doing quite a lot of good work in a quiet, unobtrusive way. A subscription of half a crown per quarter entitles you to go without ninety-two luncheons." "This must be something new," exclaimed Tarrington. "It’s the same aunt that I’ve always had," said Clovis coldly.
   "I perfectly well remember meeting you at a luncheon-party given by your aunt," persisted Tarrington. who was beginning to flush an unhealthy shade of mottled pink.
   "What was there for lunch?" asked Clovis. "Oh, well, I don’t remember that--" "How nice of you to remember my aunt when you can no longer recall the names of the things you ate..."
   The defeated Tarrington had by this time retreated out of earshot, comforting himself as best he might with the reflection that a picnic which included the presence of Clovis might prove a doubtfully agreeable experience.
   "I shall certainly go in for a Parliamentary career," said Clovis to himself as he turned complacently to rejoin his aunt. "As a talker-out of inconvenient bills I should he invaluable. " [br] What did the nephew Clovis offer to do?

选项 A、Put an unsuitable man off to his aunt’s picnic.
B、Guard against others’ provocation in his aunt’s picnic.
C、Find the man his aunt mentioned and beat him up.
D、See to the safety of his aunt and other guests.

答案 A

解析 细节题。由题干中的Clovis及题目顺序定位至第二段。首句指出:I’ll fight a rearguard action for you if you like to do a bolt now。这里fight a rearguard action意为“坚决抵制”,do a bolt意为“逃走”,可见,Clovis的意思是“如果婶婶不想让Tarrington参加野餐会的话,他就会用止他”,故[A]为答案。[B]中的guard against是对fight a rearguard action的字面曲解,不符合文意。
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