【正文】
e clock was striking the hours! Looking at his watch, he saw that it was one o’clock, but the bell struck thirteen times before it stopped. Armed with a torch, the vicar went up into the clock tower to see what was going on. In the torchlight, he caught sight of a figure whom he immediately recognized as Bill Wilkins, our local grocer. ’Whatever are you doing up here Bill?’ asked the vicar in surprise. ’I’m trying to repair the bell,’ answered Bill. ‘I’ve been ing up here night after night for weeks now. You see, I was hoping to give you a surprise.’ ’You certainly did give me a surprise!’ said the vicar. ‘You’ve probably woken up everyone in the village as well. Still, I’m glad the bell is working again.’ That’s the trouble, vicar,’ answered Bill. ‘It’s working all right, but I’m afraid that at one o’clock it will strike thirteen times and there’s nothing I can do about it.amp。想到在寧靜的鄉(xiāng)村里有一頭危險的野獸繼續(xù)逍遙流竄,真令人擔(dān)心。專家們?nèi)缃褚呀?jīng)完全肯定那只動物就是美洲獅,但它是從哪兒來的呢?由于全國動物園沒有一家報告丟了美洲獅,因此那只美洲獅一定是某位私人收藏豢養(yǎng)的,不知怎么設(shè)法逃出來了。有人抱怨說夜里聽見“像貓一樣的叫聲”。事實上搜尋工作很困難,因為常常是早晨在甲地發(fā)現(xiàn)那只美洲獅,晚上卻在20英里外的乙地發(fā)現(xiàn)它的蹤跡。那里的一位婦女在采摘黑莓時的看見“一只大貓”,離她僅5碼遠,她剛看見它,它就立刻逃走了??墒?,隨著證據(jù)越來越多,動物園的專家們感到有必要進行一番調(diào)查,因為凡是聲稱見到過美洲獅的人們所描述的情況竟是出奇地相似。catlike noises’ at night and a businessman on a fishing trip saw the puma up a tree. The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma, but where had it e from? As no pumas had been reported mis