The two chief families in Verona were the rich Capulets and the Montagues. There had been an old quarrel between these families, which was grown to such a height, and so deadly was the enmity between them, that it extended to the remotest kindred, to the followers and retainers of both sides, in so much that a servant of the house of Montague could not meet a servant of the house of Capulet, nor a Capulet encounter with a Montague by chance, but fierce words and sometimes bloodshed ensued; and frequent were the brawls from such accidental meetings, which disturbed the happy quiet of Verona's streets.

Old Lord Capulet made a great supper, to which many fair ladies and many noble guests were invited. All the admired beauties of Verona were present, and all comers were made welcome if they were not of the house of Montague. At this feast of Capulets, Rosaline, beloved of Romeo, son to the old Lord Montague, was present; and though it was dangerous for a Montague to be seen in this assembly, yet Benvolio, a friend of Romeo, persuaded the young lord to go to this assembly in the disguise of a mask, that he might see his Rosaline, and, seeing her, compare her with some choice beauties of Verona, who (he said) would make him think his swan a crow. Romeo had small faith in Benvolio's words; nevertheless, for the love of Rosaline, he was persuaded to go. For Romeo was a sincere and passionate lover, and one that lost his sleep for love and fled society to be alone, thinking on Rosaline, who disdained him and never requited his love with the least show of courtesy or affection; and Benvolio wished to cure his friend of this love by showing him diversity of ladies and company. To this feast of Capulets, then, young Romeo, with Benvolio and their friend Mercutio, went masked. Old Capulet bid them welcome and told them that ladies who had their toes unplagued with corns would dance with them. And the old man was light-hearted and merry, and said that he had worn a mask when he was young and could have told a whispering tale in a fair lady's ear. And they fell to dancing, and Romeo was suddenly struck with the exceeding beauty of a lady who danced there, who seemed to him to teach the torches to burn bright, and her beauty to show by night like a rich jewel worn by a blackamoor; beauty too rich for use, too dear for earth! like a snowy dove trooping with crows (he said), so richly did her beauty and perfections shine above the ladies her companions. While he uttered these praises he was overheard by Tybalt, a nephew of Lord Capulet, who knew him by his voice to be Romeo. And this Tybalt, being of a fiery and passionate temper, could not endure that a Montague should come under cover of a mask, to fleer and scorn (as he said) at their solemnities. And he stormed and raged exceedingly, and would have struck young Romeo dead. But his uncle, the old Lord Capulet, would not suffer him to do any injury at that time, both out of respect to his guests and because Romeo had borne himself like a gentleman and all tongues in Verona bragged of him to be a virtuous and well-governed youth. Tybalt, forced to be patient against his will, restrained himself, but swore that this vile Montague should at another time dearly pay for his intrusion.

The dancing being done, Romeo watched the place where the lady stood; and under favor of his masking habit, which might seem to excuse in part the liberty, he presumed in the gentlest manner to take her by the hand, calling it a shrine, which if he profaned by touching it, he was a blushing pilgrim and would kiss it for atonement.

"Good pilgrim," answered the lady, "your devotion shows by far too mannerly and too courtly. Saints have hands which pilgrims may touch but kiss not."

"Have not saints lips, and pilgrims, too?" said Romeo.

"Aye," said the lady, "lips which they must use in prayer."

"Oh, then, my dear saint," said Romeo, "hear my prayer, and grant it, lest I despair."

In such like allusions and loving conceits they were engaged when the lady was called away to her mother. And Romeo, inquiring who her mother was, discovered that the lady whose peerless beauty he was so much struck with was young Juliet, daughter and heir to the Lord Capulet, the great enemy of the Montagues; and that he had unknowingly engaged his heart to his foe. This troubled him, but it could not dissuade him from loving. As little rest had Juliet when she found that the gentle man that she had been talking with was Romeo and a Montague, for she had been suddenly smit with the same hasty and inconsiderate passion for Romeo which he had conceived for her; and a prodigious birth of love it seemed to her, that she must love her enemy and that her affections should settle there, where family considerations should induce her chiefly to hate.

It being midnight, Romeo with his companions departed; but they soon missed him, for, unable to stay away from the house where he had left his heart, he leaped the wall of an orchard which was at the back of Juliet's house. Here he had not been long, ruminating on his new love, when Juliet appeared above at a window, through which her exceeding beauty seemed to break like the light of the sun in the east; and the moon, which shone in the orchard with a faint light, appeared to Romeo as if sick and pale with grief at the superior luster of this new sun. And she leaning her cheek upon her hand, he passionately wished himself a glove upon that hand, that he might touch her cheek. She all this while thinking herself alone, fetched a deep sigh, and exclaimed:

"Ah me!"

Romeo, enraptured to bear her speak, said, softly and unheard by her, "Oh, speak again, bright angel, for such you appear, being over my head, like a winged messenger from heaven whom mortals fall back to gaze upon."

She, unconscious of being overheard, and full of the new passion which that night's adventure had given birth to, called upon her lover by name (whom she supposed absent). "O Romeo, Romeo!" said she, "wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, for my sake; or if thou wilt not, be but my sworn love, and I no longer will be a Capulet."

Romeo, having this encouragement, would fain have spoken, but he was desirous of hearing more; and the lady continued her passionate discourse with herself (as she thought), still chiding Romeo for being Romeo and a Montague, and wishing him some other name, or that he would put away that hated name, and for that name which was no part of himself he should take all herself. At this loving word Romeo could no longer refrain, but, taking up the dialogue as if her words had been addressed to him personally, and not merely in fancy, he bade her call him Love, or by whatever other name she pleased, for he was no longer Romeo, if that name was displeasing to her. Juliet, alarmed to hear a man's voice in the garden, did not at first know who it was that by favor of the night and darkness had thus stumbled upon the discovery of her secret; but when he spoke again, though her ears had not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's uttering, yet so nice is a lover's hearing that she immediately knew him to be young Romeo, and she expostulated with him on the danger to which he had exposed himself by climbing the orchard walls, for if any of her kinsmen should find him there it would be death to him, being a Montague.

"Alack!" said Romeo, "there is more peril in your eye than in twenty of their swords. Do you but look kind upon me, lady, and I am proof against their enmity. Better my life should be ended by their hate than that hated life should be prolonged to live without your love."

"How came you into this place," said Juliet, "and by whose direction?"

"Love directed me," answered Romeo. "I am no pilot, yet 'wert thou as far apart from me as that vast shore which is washed with the farthest sea, I should venture for such merchandise."

A crimson blush came over Juliet's face, yet unseen by Romeo by reason of the night, when she reflected upon the discovery which she had made, yet not meaning to make it, of her love to Romeo. She would fain have recalled her words, but that was impossible; fain would she have stood upon form, and have kept her lover at a distance, as the custom of discreet ladies is, to frown and be perverse and give their suitors harsh denials at first; to stand off, and affect a coyness or indifference where they most love, that their lovers may not think them too lightly or too easily won; for the difficulty of attainment increases the value of the object. But there was no room in her case for denials, or puttings off, or any of the customary arts of delay and protracted courtship. Romeo had heard from her own tongue, when she did not dream that he was near her, a confession of her love. So with an honest frankness which the novelty of her situation excused she confirmed the truth of what he had before heard, and, addressing him by the name of Fair Montague (love can sweeten a sour name), she begged him not to impute her easy yielding to levity or an unworthy mind, but that he must lay the fault of it (if it were a fault) upon the accident of the night which had so strangely discovered her thoughts. And she added, that though her behavior to him might not be sufficiently prudent, measured by the custom of her sex, yet that she would prove more true than many whose prudence was dissembling, and their modesty artificial cunning.

Romeo was beginning to call the heavens to witness that nothing was farther from his thoughts than to impute a shadow of dishonor to such an honored lady, when she stopped him, begging him not to swear; for although she joyed in him, yet she had no joy of that night's contract--it was too rash, too unadvised, too sudden. But he being urgent with her to exchange a vow of love with him that night, she said that she already had given him hers before he requested it, meaning, when he overheard her confession; but she would retract what she then bestowed, for the pleasure of giving it again, for her bounty was as infinite as the sea, and her love as deep. From this loving conference she was called away by her nurse, who slept with her and thought it time for her to be in bed, for it was near to daybreak; but, hastily returning, she said three or four words more to Romeo the purport of which was, that if his love was indeed honorable, and his purpose marriage, she would send a messenger to him to-morrow to appoint a time for their marriage, when she would lay all her fortunes at his feet and follow him as her lord through the world. While they were settling this point Juliet was repeatedly called for by her nurse, and went in and returned, and went and returned again, for she seemed as jealous of Romeo going from her as a young girl of her bird, which she will let hop a little from her hand and pluck it back with a silken thread; and Romeo was as loath to part as she, for the sweetest music to lovers is the sound of each other's tongues at night. But at last they parted, wishing mutually sweet sleep and rest for that night.

The day was breaking when they parted, and Romeo, who was too full of thoughts of his mistress and that blessed meeting to allow him to sleep, instead of going home, bent his course to a monastery hard by, to find Friar Lawrence. The good friar was already up at his devotions, but, seeing young Romeo abroad so early, he conjectured rightly that he had not been abed that night, but that some distemper of youthful affection had kept him waking. He was right in imputing the cause of Romeo's wakefulness to love, but he made a wrong guess at the object, for he thought that his love for Rosaline had kept him waking. But when Romeo revealed his new passion for Juliet, and requested the assistance of the friar to marry them that day, the holy man lifted up his eyes and hands in a sort of wonder at the sudden change in Romeo's affections, for he had been privy to all Romeo's love for Rosaline and his many complaints of her disdain; and he said that young men's love lay not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. But Romeo replying that he himself had often chidden him for doting on Rosaline, who could not love him again, whereas Juliet both loved and was beloved by him, the friar assented in some measure to his reasons; and thinking that a matrimonial alliance between young Juliet and Romeo might happily be the means of making up the long breach between the Capulets and the Montagues, which no one more lamented than this good friar who was a friend to both the families and had often interposed his mediation to make up the quarrel without effect; partly moved by policy, and partly by his fondness for young Romeo, to whom he could deny nothing, the old man consented to join their hands in marriage.

Now was Romeo blessed indeed, and Juliet, who knew his intent from a messenger which she had despatched according to promise, did not fail to be early at the cell of Friar Lawrence, where their hands were joined in holy marriage, the good friar praying the heavens to smile upon that act, and in the union of this young Montague and young Capulet, to bury the old strife and long dissensions of their families.

The ceremony being over, Juliet hastened home, where she stayed, impatient for the coming of night, at which time Romeo promised to come and meet her in the orchard, where they had met the night before; and the time between seemed as tedious to her as the night before some great festival seems to an impatient child that has got new finery which it may not put on till the morning.

That same day, about noon, Romeo's friends, Benvolio and Mercutio, walking through the streets of Verona, were met by a party of the Capulets with the impetuous Tybalt at their head. This was the same angry Tybalt who would have fought with Romeo at old Lord Capulet's feast. He, seeing Mercutio, accused him bluntly of associating with Romeo, a Montague. Mercutio, who had as much fire and youthful blood in him as Tybalt, replied to this accusation with some sharpness; and in spite of all Benvolio could say to moderate their wrath a quarrel was beginning when, Romeo himself passing that way, the fierce Tybalt turned from Mercutio to Romeo, and gave him the disgraceful appellation of villain. Romeo wished to avoid a quarrel with Tybalt above all men, because he was the kinsman of Juliet and much beloved by her; besides, this young Montague had never thoroughly entered into the family quarrel, being by nature wise and gentle, and the name of a Capulet, which was his dear lady's name, was now rather a charm to allay resentment than a watchword to excite fury. So he tried to reason with Tybalt, whom he saluted mildly by the name of Good Capulet, as if he, though a Montague, had some secret pleasure in uttering that name; but Tybalt, who hated all Montagues as he hated hell, would hear no reason, but drew his weapon; and Mercutio, who knew not of Romeo's secret motive for desiring peace with Tybalt, but looked upon his present forbearance as a sort of calm dishonorable submission, with many disdainful words provoked Tybalt to the prosecution of his first quarrel with him; and Tybalt and Mercutio fought, till Mercutio fell, receiving his death's wound while Romeo and Benvolio were vainly endeavoring to part the combatants. Mercutio being dead, Romeo kept his temper no longer, but returned the scornful appellation of villain which Tybalt had given him, and they fought till Tybalt was slain by Romeo. This deadly broil falling out in the midst of Verona at noonday, the news of it quickly brought a crowd of citizens to the spot and among them the Lords Capulet and Montague, with their wives; and soon after arrived the prince himself, who, being related to Mercutio, whom Tybalt had slain, and having had the peace of his government often disturbed by these brawls of Montagues and Capulets, came determined to put the law in strictest force against those who should be found to be offenders. Benvolio, who had been eye-witness to the fray, was commanded by the prince to relate the origin of it; which he did, keeping as near the truth as he could without injury to Romeo, softening and excusing the part which his friends took in it. Lady Capulet, whose extreme grief for the loss of her kinsman Tybalt made her keep no bounds in her revenge, exhorted the prince to do strict justice upon his murderer, and to,pay no attention to Benvolio's representation, who, being Romeo's friend and a Montague, spoke partially. Thus she pleaded against her new son-in-law, but she knew not yet that he was her son-in-law and Juliet's husband. On the other hand was to be seen Lady Montague pleading for her child's life, and arguing with some justice that Romeo had done nothing worthy of punishment in taking the life of Tybalt, which was already forfeited to the law by his having slain Mercutio. The prince, unmoved by the passionate exclamations of these women, on a careful examination of the facts pronounced his sentence, and by that sentence Romeo was banished from Verona.

Heavy news to young Juliet, who had been but a few hours a bride and now by this decree seemed everlastingly divorced! When the tidings reached her, she at first gave way to rage against Romeo, who had slain her dear cousin. She called him a beautiful tyrant, a fiend angelical, a ravenous dove, a lamb with a wolf's nature, a serpent-heart hid with a flowering face, and other, like contradictory names, which denoted the struggles in her mind between her love and her resentment. But in the end love got the mastery, and the tears which she shed for grief that Romeo had slain her cousin turned to drops of joy that her husband lived whom Tybalt would have slain. Then came fresh tears, and they were altogether of grief for Romeo's banishment. That word was more terrible to her than the death of many Tybalts.

Romeo, after the fray, had taken refuge in Friar Lawrence's cell, where he was first made acquainted with the prince's sentence, which seemed to him far more terrible than death. To him it appeared there was no world out of Verona's walls, no living out of the sight of Juliet. Heaven was there where Juliet lived, and all beyond was purgatory, torture, hell. The good friar would have applied the consolation of philosophy to his griefs; but this frantic young man would hear of none, but like a madman he tore his hair and threw himself all along upon the ground, as he said, to take the measure of his grave. From this unseemly state he was roused by a message from his dear lady which a little revived him; and then the friar took the advantage to expostulate with him on the unmanly weakness which he had shown. He had slain Tybalt, but would he also slay himself, slay his dear lady, who lived but in his life? The noble form of man, he said, was but a shape of wax when it wanted the courage which should keep it firm. The law had been lenient to him that instead of death, which he had incurred, had pronounced by the prince's mouth only banishment. He had slain Tybalt, but Tybalt would have slain him-there was a sort of happiness in that. Juliet was alive and (beyond all hope) had become his dear wife; therein he was most happy. All these blessings, as the friar made them out to be, did Romeo put from him like a sullen misbehaved wench. And the friar bade him beware, for such as despaired (he said) died miserable. Then when Romeo was a little calmed he counseled him that he should go that night and secretly take his leave of Juliet, and thence proceed straightway to Mantua, at which place he should sojourn till the friar found fit occasion to publish his marriage, which might be a joyful means of reconciling their families; and then he did not doubt but the prince would be moved to pardon him, and he would return with twenty times more joy than he went forth with grief. Romeo was convinced by these wise counsels of the friar, and took his leave to go and seek his lady, proposing to stay with her that night, and by daybreak pursue his journey alone to Mantua; to which place the good friar promised to send him letters from time to time, acquainting him with the state of affairs at home.

That night Romeo passed with his dear wife, gaining secret admission to her chamber from the orchard in which he had heard her confession of love the night before. That had been a night of unmixed joy and rapture; but the pleasures of this night and the delight which these lovers took in each other's society were sadly allayed with the prospect of parting and the fatal adventures of the past day. The unwelcome daybreak seemed to come too soon, and when Juliet heard the morning song of the lark she would have persuaded herself that it was the nightingale, which sings by night; but it was too truly the lark which sang, and a discordant and unpleasing note it seemed to her; and the streaks of day in the east too certainly pointed out that it was time for these lovers to part. Romeo took his leave of his dear wife with a heavy heart, promising to write to her from Mantua every hour in the day; and when he had descended from her chamber window, as he stood below her on the ground, in that sad foreboding state of mind in which she was, he appeared to her eyes as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Romeo's mind misgave him in like manner. But now he was forced hastily to depart, for it was death for him to be found within the walls of Verona after daybreak.

This was but the beginning of the tragedy of this pair of star- crossed lovers. Romeo had not been gone many days before the old Lord Capulet proposed a match for Juliet. The husband he had chosen for her, not dreaming that she was married already, was Count Paris, a gallant, young, and noble gentleman, no unworthy suitor to the young Juliet if she had never seen Romeo.

The terrified Juliet was in a sad perplexity at her father's offer. She pleaded her youth unsuitable to marriage, the recent death of Tybalt, which had left her spirits too weak to meet a husband with any face of joy, and how indecorous it would show for the family of the Capulets to be celebrating a nuptial feast when his funeral solemnities were hardly over. She pleaded every reason against the match but the true one, namely, that she was married already. But Lord Capulet was deaf to all her excuses, and in a peremptory manner ordered her to get ready, for by the following Thursday she should be married to Paris. And having found her a husband, rich, young, and noble, such as the proudest maid in Verona might joyfully accept, he could not bear that out of an affected coyness, as he construed her denial, she should oppose obstacles to her own good fortune.

In this extremity Juliet applied to the friendly friar, always a counselor in distress, and he asking her if she had resolution to undertake a desperate remedy, and she answering that she would go into the grave alive rather than marry Paris, her own dear husband living, he directed her to go home, and appear merry, and give her consent to marry Paris, according to her father's desire, and on the next night, which was the night before the marriage, to drink off the contents of a vial which he then gave her, the effect of which would be that for two-and-forty hours after drinking it she should appear cold and lifeless, and when the bridegroom came to fetch her in the morning he would find her to appearance dead; that then she would be borne, as the manner in that country was, uncovered on a bier, to be buried in the family vault; that if she could put off womanish fear, and consent to this terrible trial, in forty-two hours after swallowing the liquid (such was its certain operation) she would be sure to awake, as from a dream; and before she should awake he would let her husband know their drift, and he should come in the night and bear her thence to Mantua. Love, and the dread of marrying Paris, gave young Juliet strength to undertake this horrible adventure; and she took the vial of the friar, promising to observe his directions.

Going from the monastery, she met the young Count Paris, and, modestly dissembling, promised to become his bride. This was joyful news to the Lord Capulet and his wife. It seemed to put youth into the old man; and Juliet, who had displeased him exceedingly by her refusal of the count, was his darling again, now she promised to be obedient. All things in the house were in a bustle against the approaching nuptials. No cost was spared to prepare such festival rejoicings as Verona had never before witnessed.

On the Wednesday night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was always known for a holy man. Then lest she should awake before the time that Romeo was to come for her; whether the terror of the place, a vault full of dead Capulets' bones, and where Tybalt, all bloody, lay festering in his shroud, would not be enough to drive her distracted. Again she thought of all the stories she had heard of spirits haunting the places where their bodies were bestowed. But then her love for Romeo and her aversion for Paris returned, and she desperately swallowed the draught and became insensible.

When young Paris came early in the morning with music to awaken his bride, instead of a living Juliet her chamber presented the dreary spectacle of a lifeless corse. What death to his hopes! What confusion then reigned through the whole house! Poor Paris lamenting his bride, whom most detestable death had beguiled him of, had divorced from him even before their hands were joined. But still more piteous it was to hear the mournings of the old Lord and Lady Capulet, who having but this one, one poor loving child to rejoice and solace in, cruel death had snatched her from their sight, just as these careful parents were on the point of seeing her advanced (as they thought) by a promising and advantageous match. Now all things that were ordained for the festival were turned from their properties to do the office of a black funeral. The wedding cheer served for a sad burial feast, the bridal hymns were changed for sullen dirges, the sprightly instruments to melancholy.bells, and the flowers that should have been strewed in the bride's path now served but to strew her corse. Now, instead of a priest to marry her, a priest was needed to bury her, and she was borne to church indeed, not to augment the cheerful hopes of the living, but to swell the dreary numbers of the dead.

Bad news, which always travels faster than good, now brought the dismal story of his Juliet's death to Romeo, at Mantua, before the messenger could arrive who was sent from Friar Lawrence to apprise him that these were mock funerals only, and but the shadow and representation of death, and that his dear lady lay in the tomb but for a short while, expecting when Romeo would come to release her from that dreary mansion. Just before, Romeo had been unusually joyful and light-hearted. He had dreamed in the night that he was dead (a strange dream, that gave a dead man leave to think) and that his lady came and found him dead, and breathed such life with kisses in his lips that he revived and was an emperor! And now that a messenger came from Verona, he thought surely it was to confirm some good news which his dreams had presaged. But when the contrary to this flattering vision appeared, and that it was his lady who was dead in truth, whom he could not revive by any kisses, he ordered horses to be got ready, for he determined that night to visit Verona and to see his lady in her tomb. And as mischief is swift to enter into the thoughts of desperate men, he called to mind a poor apothecary, whose shop in Mantua he had lately passed, and from the beggarly appearance of the man, who seemed famished, and the wretched show in his show of empty boxes ranged on dirty shelves, and other tokens of extreme wretchedness, he had said at the time (perhaps having some misgivings that his own disastrous life might haply meet with a conclusion so desperate):

"If a man were to need poison, which by the law of Mantua it is death to sell, here lives a poor wretch who would sell it him."

These words of his now came into his mind and he sought out the apothecary, who after some pretended scruples, Romeo offering him gold, which his poverty could not resist, sold him a poison which, if he swallowed, he told him, if he had the strength of twenty men, would quickly despatch him.

With this poison he set out for Verona, to have a sight of his dear lady in her tomb, meaning, when he had satisfied his sight, to swallow the poison and be buried by her side. He reached Verona at midnight, and found the churchyard in the midst of which was situated the ancient tomb of the Capulets. He had provided a light, and a spade, and wrenching-iron, and was proceeding to break open the monument when he was interrupted by a voice, which by the name of Vile Montague bade him desist from his unlawful business. It was the young Count Paris, who had come to the tomb of Juliet at that unseasonable time of night to strew flowers and to weep over the grave of her that should have been his bride. He knew not what an interest Romeo had in the dead, but, knowing him to be a Montague and (as he supposed) a sworn foe to all the Capulets, he judged that he was come by night to do some villainous shame to the dead bodies; therefore in an angry tone he bade him desist; and as a criminal, condemned by the laws of Verona to die if he were found within the walls of the city, he would have apprehended him. Romeo urged Paris to leave him, and warned him by the fate of Tybalt, who lay buried there, not to provoke his anger or draw down another sin upon his head by forcing him to kill him. But the count in scorn refused his warning, and laid hands on him as a felon, which, Romeo resisting, they fought, and Paris fell. When Romeo, by the help of a light, came to see who it was that he had slain, that it was Paris, who (he learned in his way from Mantua) should have married Juliet, he took the dead youth by the hand, as one whom misfortune had made a companion, and said that he would bury him in a triumphal grave, meaning in Juliet's grave, which he now opened. And there lay his lady, as one whom death had no power upon to change a feature or complexion, in her matchless beauty; or as if death were amorous, and the lean, abhorred monster kept her there for his delight; for she lay yet fresh and blooming, as she had fallen to sleep when she swallowed that benumbing potion; and near her lay Tybalt in his bloody shroud, whom Romeo seeing, begged pardon of his lifeless corse, and for Juliet's sake called him cousin, and said that he was about to do him a favor by putting his enemy to death. Here Romeo took his last leave of his lady's lips, kissing them; and here he shook the burden of his cross stars from his weary body, swallowing that poison which the apothecary had sold him, whose operation was fatal and real, not like that dissembling potion which Juliet had swallowed, the effect of which was now nearly expiring, and she about to awake to complain that Romeo had not kept his time, or that he had come too soon.

For now the hour was arrived at which the friar had promised that she should awake; and he, having learned that his letters which he had sent to Mantua, by some unlucky detention of the messenger, had never reached Romeo, came himself, provided with a pickax and lantern, to deliver the lady from her confinement; but he was surprised to find a light already burning in the Capulets' monument, and to see swords and blood near it, and Romeo and Paris lying breathless by the monument,

Before he could entertain a conjecture, to imagine how these fatal accidents had fallen out, Juliet awoke out of her trance, and, seeing the friar near her, she remembered the place where she was, and the occasion of her being there, and asked for Romeo, but the friar, hearing a noise, bade her come out of that place of death and of unnatural sleep, for a greater power than they could contradict had thwarted their intents; and, being frightened by the noise of people coming, he fled. But when Juliet saw the cup closed in her true love's hands, she guessed that poison had been the cause of his end, and she would have swallowed the dregs if any had been left, and she kissed his still warm lips to try if any poison yet did hang upon them; then hearing a nearer noise of people coming, she quickly unsheathed a dagger which she wore, and, stabbing herself, died by her true Romeo's side.

The watch by this time had come up to the place. A page belonging to Count Paris, who had witnessed the fight between his master and Romeo, had given the alarm, which had spread among the citizens, who went up and down the streets of Verona confusedly exclaiming, "A Paris! a Romeo! a Juliet!" as the rumor had imperfectly reached them, till the uproar brought Lord Montague and Lord Capulet out of their beds, with the prince, to inquire into the causes of the disturbance. The friar had been apprehended by some of the watch, coming from the churchyard, trembling, sighing, and weeping in a suspicious manner. A great multitude being assembled at the Capulets' monument, the friar was demanded by the prince to deliver what he knew of these strange and disastrous accidents.

And there, in the presence of the old Lords Montague and Capulet, he faithfully related the story of their children's fatal love, the part he took in promoting their marriage, in the hope in that union to end the long quarrels between their families; how Romeo, there dead, was husband to Juliet, and Juliet, there dead, was Romeo's faithful wife; how, before he could find a fit opportunity to divulge their marriage, another match was projected for Juliet, who, to avoid the crime of a second marriage, swallowed the sleeping-draught (as he advised), and all thought her dead; how meantime he wrote to Romeo to come and take her thence when the force of the potion should cease, and by what unfortunate miscarriage of the messenger the letters never reached Romeo. Further than this the friar could not follow the story, nor knew more than that, coming himself to deliver Juliet from that place of death, he found the Count Paris and Romeo slain. The remainder of the transactions was supplied by the narration of the page who had seen Paris and Romeo fight, and by the servant who came with Romeo from Verona, to whom this faithful lover had given letters to be delivered to his father in the event of his death, which made good the friar's words, confessing his marriage with Juliet, imploring the forgiveness of his parents, acknowledging the buying of the poison of the poor apothecary and his intent in coming to the monument to die and lie with Juliet. All these circumstances agreed together to clear the friar from any hand he could be supposed to have in these complicated slaughters, further than as the unintended consequences of his own well-meant, yet too artificial and subtle contrivances.

And the prince, turning to these old lords, Montague and Capulet, rebuked them for their brutal and irrational enmities, and showed them what a scourge Heaven had laid upon such offenses, that it had found means even through the love of their children to punish their unnatural hate. And these old rivals, no longer enemies, agreed to bury their long strife in their children's graves; and Lord Capulet requested Lord Montague to give him his hand, calling him by the name of brother, as if in acknowledgment of the union of their families by the marriage of the young Capulet and Montague; and saying that Lord Montague's hand (in token of reconcilement) was all he demanded for his daughter's jointure. But Lord Montague said he would give him more, for he would raise her a statue of pure gold that, while Verona kept its name, no figure should be so esteemed for its richness and workmanship as that of the true and faithful Juliet. And Lord Capulet in return said that he would raise another statue to Romeo. So did these poor old lords, when it was too late, strive to outgo each other in mutual courtesies; while so deadly had been their rage and enmity in past times that nothing but the fearful overthrow of their children (poor sacrifices to their quarrels and dissensions) could remove the rooted hates and jealousies of the noble families.

a simplified version of the classic love story by Charles and Mary Lamb

The story which is narrated in the following pages came to me from the lips of my old friend Allan Quatermain, or Hunter Quatermain, as we used to call him in South Africa. He told it to me one evening when I was stopping with him at the place he bought in Yorkshire. Shortly after that, the death of his only son so unsettled him that he immediately left England, accompanied by two companions, his old fellow-voyagers, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and has now utterly vanished into the dark heart of Africa. He is persuaded that a white people, of which he has heard rumours all his life, exists somewhere on the highlands in the vast, still unexplored interior, and his great ambition is to find them before he dies. This is the wild quest upon which he and his companions have departed, and from which I shrewdly suspect they never will return. One letter only have I received from the old gentleman, dated from a mission station high up the Tana, a river on the east coast, about three hundred miles north of Zanzibar. In it he says that they have gone through many hardships and adventures, but are alive and well, and have found traces which go far towards making him hope that the results of their wild quest may be a "magnificent and unexampled discovery." I greatly fear, however, that all he has discovered is death; for this letter came a long while ago, and nobody has heard a single word of the party since. They have totally vanished.

It was on the last evening of my stay at his house that he told the ensuing story to me and Captain Good, who was dining with him. He had eaten his dinner and drunk two or three glasses of old port, just to help Good and myself to the end of the second bottle. It was an unusual thing for him to do, for he was a most abstemious man, having conceived, as he used to say, a great horror of drink from observing its effects upon the class of colonists--hunters, transport riders and others--amongst whom he had passed so many years of his life. Consequently the good wine took more effect on him than it would have done on most men, sending a little flush into his wrinkled cheeks, and making him talk more freely than usual.

Dear old man! I can see him now, as he went limping up and down the vestibule, with his grey hair sticking up in scrubbing-brush fashion, his shrivelled yellow face, and his large dark eyes, that were as keen as any hawk's, and yet soft as a buck's. The whole room was hung with trophies of his numerous hunting expeditions, and he had some story about every one of them, if only he could be got to tell it. Generally he would not, for he was not very fond of narrating his own adventures, but to-night the port wine made him more communicative.

"Ah, you brute!" he said, stopping beneath an unusually large skull of a lion, which was fixed just over the mantelpiece, beneath a long row of guns, its jaws distended to their utmost width. "Ah, you brute! you have given me a lot of trouble for the last dozen years, and will, I suppose to my dying day."

"Tell us the yarn, Quatermain," said Good. "You have often promised to tell me, and you never have."

"You had better not ask me to," he answered, "for it is a longish one."

"All right," I said, "the evening is young, and there is some more port."

Thus adjured, he filled his pipe from a jar of coarse-cut Boer tobacco that was always standing on the mantelpiece, and still walking up and down the room, began--

"It was, I think, in the March of '69 that I was up in Sikukuni's country. It was just after old Sequati's time, and Sikukuni had got into power--I forget how. Anyway, I was there. I had heard that the Bapedi people had brought down an enormous quantity of ivory from the interior, and so I started with a waggon-load of goods, and came straight away from Middelburg to try and trade some of it. It was a risky thing to go into the country so early, on account of the fever; but I knew that there were one or two others after that lot of ivory, so I determined to have a try for it, and take my chance of fever. I had become so tough from continual knocking about that I did not set it down at much.

"Well, I got on all right for a while. It is a wonderfully beautiful piece of bush veldt, with great ranges of mountains running through it, and round granite koppies starting up here and there, looking out like sentinels over the rolling waste of bush. But it is very hot--hot as a stew-pan--and when I was there that March, which, of course, is autumn in this part of Africa, the whole place reeked of fever. Every morning, as I trekked along down by the Oliphant River, I used to creep from the waggon at dawn and look out. But there was no river to be seen--only a long line of billows of what looked like the finest cotton wool tossed up lightly with a pitchfork. It was the fever mist. Out from among the scrub, too, came little spirals of vapour, as though there were hundreds of tiny fires alight in it--reek rising from thousands of tons of rotting vegetation. It was a beautiful place, but the beauty was the beauty of death; and all those lines and blots of vapour wrote one great word across the surface of the country, and that word was 'fever.'

"It was a dreadful year of illness that. I came, I remember, to one little kraal of Knobnoses, and went up to it to see if I could get some 'maas', or curdled butter-milk, and a few mealies. As I drew near I was struck with the silence of the place. No children began to chatter, and no dogs barked. Nor could I see any native sheep or cattle. The place, though it had evidently been inhabited of late, was as still as the bush round it, and some guinea-fowl got up out of the prickly pear bushes right at the kraal gate. I remember that I hesitated a little before going in, there was such an air of desolation about the spot. Nature never looks desolate when man has not yet laid his hand upon her breast; she is only lonely. But when man has been, and has passed away, then she looks desolate.

"Well, I passed into the kraal, and went up to the principal hut. In front of the hut was something with an old sheep-skin kaross thrown over it. I stooped down and drew off the rug, and then shrank back amazed, for under it was the body of a young woman recently dead. For a moment I thought of turning back, but my curiosity overcame me; so going past the dead woman, I went down on my hands and knees and crept into the hut. It was so dark that I could not see anything, though I could smell a great deal, so I lit a match. It was a 'tandstickor' match, and burnt slowly and dimly, and as the light gradually increased I made out what I took to be a family of people, men, women, and children, fast asleep. Presently it burnt up brightly, and I saw that they too, five of them altogether, were quite dead. One was a baby. I dropped the match in a hurry, and was making my way from the hut as quick as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send up a succession of awful yells.

"Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an old woman, wrapped up in a greasy leather garment. Taking her by the arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would not, come by herself, and the stench was overpowering me. Such a sight as she was--a bag of bones, covered over with black, shrivelled parchment. The only white thing about her was her wool, and she seemed to be pretty well dead except for her eyes and her voice. She thought that I was a devil come to take her, and that is why she yelled so. Well, I got her down to the waggon, and gave her a 'tot' of Cape smoke, and then, as soon as it was ready, poured about a pint of beef-tea down her throat, made from the flesh of a blue vilderbeeste I had killed the day before, and after that she brightened up wonderfully. She could talk Zulu--indeed, it turned out that she had run away from Zululand in T'Chaka's time--and she told me that all the people whom I had seen had died of fever. When they had died the other inhabitants of the kraal had taken the cattle and gone away, leaving the poor old woman, who was helpless from age and infirmity, to perish of starvation or disease, as the case might be. She had been sitting there for three days among the bodies when I found her. I took her on to the next kraal, and gave the headman a blanket to look after her, promising him another if I found her well when I came back. I remember that he was much astonished at my parting with two blankets for the sake of such a worthless old creature. 'Why did I not leave her in the bush?' he asked. Those people carry the doctrine of the survival of the fittest to its extreme, you see.

"It was the night after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my first acquaintance with my friend yonder," and he nodded towards the skull that seemed to be grinning down at us in the shadow of the wide mantelshelf. "I had trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock--a long trek--but I wanted to get on, and had turned the oxen out to graze, sending the voorlooper to look after them, my intention being to inspan again about six o'clock, and trek with the moon till ten. Then I got into the waggon and had a good sleep till half-past two or so in the afternoon, when I rose and cooked some meat, and had my dinner, washing it down with a pannikin of black coffee--for it was difficult to get preserved milk in those days. Just as I had finished, and the driver, a man called Tom, was washing up the things, in comes the young scoundrel of a voorlooper driving one ox before him.

"'Where are the other oxen?' I asked.

"'Koos!' he said, 'Koos! the other oxen have gone away. I turned my back for a minute, and when I looked round again they were all gone except Kaptein, here, who was rubbing his back against a tree.'

"'You mean that you have been asleep, and let them stray, you villain. I will rub your back against a stick,' I answered, feeling very angry, for it was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever trap for a week or so while we were hunting for the oxen. 'Off you go, and you too, Tom, and mind you don't come back till you have found them. They have trekked back along the Middelburg Road, and are a dozen miles off by now, I'll be bound. Now, no words; go both of you.'

"Tom, the driver, swore, and caught the lad a hearty kick, which he richly deserved, and then, having tied old Kaptein up to the disselboom with a reim, they took their assegais and sticks, and started. I would have gone too, only I knew that somebody must look after the waggon, and I did not like to leave either of the boys with it at night. I was in a very bad temper, indeed, although I was pretty well used to these sort of occurrences, and soothed myself by taking a rifle and going to kill something. For a couple of hours I poked about without seeing anything that I could get a shot at, but at last, just as I was again within seventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old Impala ram from behind a mimosa thorn. He ran straight for the waggon, and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine. Over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into rather a better humour, especially as the buck had rolled right against the after-part of the waggon, so I had only to gut him, fix a reim round his legs, and haul him up. By the time I had done this the sun was down, and the full moon was up, and a beautiful moon it was. And then there came that wonderful hush which sometimes falls over the African bush in the early hours of the night. No beast was moving, and no bird called. Not a breath of air stirred the quiet trees, and the shadows did not even quiver, they only grew. It was very oppressive and very lonely, for there was not a sign of the cattle or the boys. I was quite thankful for the society of old Kaptein, who was lying down contentedly against the disselboom, chewing the cud with a good conscience.

"Presently, however, Kaptein began to get restless. First he snorted, then he got up and snorted again. I could not make it out, so like a fool I got down off the waggon-box to have a look round, thinking it might be the lost oxen coming.

"Next instant I regretted it, for all of a sudden I heard a roar and saw something yellow flash past me and light on poor Kaptein. Then came a bellow of agony from the ox, and a crunch as the lion put his teeth through the poor brute's neck, and I began to understand what had happened. My rifle was in the waggon, and my first thought being to get hold of it, I turned and made a bolt for the box. I got my foot up on the wheel and flung my body forward on to the waggon, and there I stopped as if I were frozen, and no wonder, for as I was about to spring up I heard the lion behind me, and next second I felt the brute, ay, as plainly as I can feel this table. I felt him, I say, sniffing at my left leg that was hanging down.

"My word! I did feel queer; I don't think that I ever felt so queer before. I dared not move for the life of me, and the odd thing was that I seemed to lose power over my leg, which developed an insane sort of inclination to kick out of its own mere motion--just as hysterical people want to laugh when they ought to be particularly solemn. Well, the lion sniffed and sniffed, beginning at my ankle and slowly nosing away up to my thigh. I thought that he was going to get hold then, but he did not. He only growled softly, and went back to the ox. Shifting my head a little I got a full view of him. He was about the biggest lion I ever saw, and I have seen a great many, and he had a most tremendous black mane. What his teeth were like you can see--look there, pretty big ones, ain't they? Altogether he was a magnificent animal, and as I lay sprawling on the fore-tongue of the waggon, it occurred to me that he would look uncommonly well in a cage. He stood there by the carcass of poor Kaptein, and deliberately disembowelled him as neatly as a butcher could have done. All this while I dared not move, for he kept lifting his head and keeping an eye on me as he licked his bloody chops. When he had cleaned Kaptein out he opened his mouth and roared, and I am not exaggerating when I say that the sound shook the waggon. Instantly there came back an answering roar.

"'Heavens!' I thought, 'there is his mate.'

"Hardly was the thought out of my head when I caught sight in the moonlight of the lioness bounding along through the long grass, and after her a couple of cubs about the size of mastiffs. She stopped within a few feet of my head, and stood, waved her tail, and fixed me with her glowing yellow eyes; but just as I thought that it was all over she turned and began to feed on Kaptein, and so did the cubs. There were the four of them within eight feet of me, growling and quarrelling, rending and tearing, and crunching poor Kaptein's bones; and there I lay shaking with terror, and the cold perspiration pouring out of me, feeling like another Daniel come to judgment in a new sense of the phrase. Presently the cubs had eaten their fill, and began to get restless. One went round to the back of the waggon and pulled at the Impala buck that hung there, and the other came round my way and commenced the sniffing game at my leg. Indeed, he did more than that, for, my trouser being hitched up a little, he began to lick the bare skin with his rough tongue. The more he licked the more he liked it, to judge from his increased vigour and the loud purring noise he made. Then I knew that the end had come, for in another second his file-like tongue would have rasped through the skin of my leg--which was luckily pretty tough--and have drawn the blood, and then there would be no chance for me. So I just lay there and thought of my sins, and prayed to the Almighty, and reflected that after all life was a very enjoyable thing.

"Then of a sudden I heard a crashing of bushes and the shouting and whistling of men, and there were the two boys coming back with the cattle, which they had found trekking along all together. The lions lifted their heads and listened, then bounded off without a sound--and I fainted.

"The lions came back no more that night, and by the next morning my nerves had got pretty straight again; but I was full of wrath when I thought of all that I had gone through at the hands, or rather noses, of those four brutes, and of the fate of my after-ox Kaptein. He was a splendid ox, and I was very fond of him. So wroth was I that like a fool I determined to attack the whole family of them. It was worthy of a greenhorn out on his first hunting trip; but I did it nevertheless. Accordingly after breakfast, having rubbed some oil upon my leg, which was very sore from the cub's tongue, I took the driver, Tom, who did not half like the business, and having armed myself with an ordinary double No. 12 smoothbore, the first breechloader I ever had, I started. I took the smoothbore because it shot a bullet very well; and my experience has been that a round ball from a smoothbore is quite as effective against a lion as an express bullet. The lion is soft, and not a difficult animal to finish if you hit him anywhere in the body. A buck takes far more killing.

"Well, I started, and the first thing I set to work to do was to try to discover whereabouts the brutes lay up for the day. About three hundred yards from the waggon was the crest of a rise covered with single mimosa trees, dotted about in a park-like fashion, and beyond this lay a stretch of open plain running down to a dry pan, or water-hole, which covered about an acre of ground, and was densely clothed with reeds, now in the sere and yellow leaf. From the further edge of this pan the ground sloped up again to a great cleft, or nullah, which had been cut out by the action of the water, and was pretty thickly sprinkled with bush, amongst which grew some large trees, I forget of what sort.

"It at once struck me that the dry pan would be a likely place to find my friends in, as there is nothing a lion is fonder of than lying up in reeds, through which he can see things without being seen himself. Accordingly thither I went and prospected. Before I had got half-way round the pan I found the remains of a blue vilderbeeste that had evidently been killed within the last three or four days and partially devoured by lions; and from other indications about I was soon assured that if the family were not in the pan that day they spent a good deal of their spare time there. But if there, the question was how to get them out; for it was clearly impossible to think of going in after them unless one was quite determined to commit suicide. Now there was a strong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the reedy pan towards the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me the idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you, were pretty dry. Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting little fires to the left, and I did the same to the right. But the reeds were still green at the bottom, and we should never have got them well alight had it not been for the wind, which grew stronger and stronger as the sun climbed higher, and forced the fire into them. At last, after half-an-hour's trouble, the flames got a hold, and began to spread out like a fan, whereupon I went round to the further side of the pan to wait for the lions, standing well out in the open, as we stood at the copse to-day where you shot the woodcock. It was a rather risky thing to do, but I used to be so sure of my shooting in those days that I did not so much mind the risk. Scarcely had I got round when I heard the reeds parting before the onward rush of some animal. 'Now for it,' said I. On it came. I could see that it was yellow, and prepared for action, when instead of a lion out bounded a beautiful reit bok which had been lying in the shelter of the pan. It must, by the way, have been a reit bok of a peculiarly confiding nature to lay itself down with the lion, like the lamb of prophesy, but I suppose the reeds were thick, and that it kept a long way off.

"Well, I let the reit bok go, and it went like the wind, and kept my eyes fixed upon the reeds. The fire was burning like a furnace now; the flames crackling and roaring as they bit into the reeds, sending spouts of fire twenty feet and more into the air, and making the hot air dance above in a way that was perfectly dazzling. But the reeds were still half green, and created an enormous quantity of smoke, which came rolling towards me like a curtain, lying very low on account of the wind. Presently, above the crackling of the fire, I heard a startled roar, then another and another. So the lions were at home.

"I was beginning to get excited now, for, as you fellows know, there is nothing in experience to warm up your nerves like a lion at close quarters, unless it is a wounded buffalo; and I became still more so when I made out through the smoke that the lions were all moving about on the extreme edge of the reeds. Occasionally they would pop their heads out like rabbits from a burrow, and then, catching sight of me standing about fifty yards away, draw them back again. I knew that it must be getting pretty warm behind them, and that they could not keep the game up for long; and I was not mistaken, for suddenly all four of them broke cover together, the old black-maned lion leading by a few yards. I never saw a more splendid sight in all my hunting experience than those four lions bounding across the veldt, overshadowed by the dense pall of smoke and backed by the fiery furnace of the burning reeds.

"I reckoned that they would pass, on their way to the bushy kloof, within about five and twenty yards of me, so, taking a long breath, I got my gun well on to the lion's shoulder--the black-maned one--so as to allow for an inch or two of motion, and catch him through the heart. I was on, dead on, and my finger was just beginning to tighten on the trigger, when suddenly I went blind--a bit of reed-ash had drifted into my right eye. I danced and rubbed, and succeeded in clearing it more or less just in time to see the tail of the last lion vanishing round the bushes up the kloof.

"If ever a man was mad I was that man. It was too bad; and such a shot in the open! However, I was not going to be beaten, so I just turned and marched for the kloof. Tom, the driver, begged and implored me not to go, but though as a general rule I never pretend to be very brave (which I am not), I was determined that I would either kill those lions or they should kill me. So I told Tom that he need not come unless he liked, but I was going; and being a plucky fellow, a Swazi by birth, he shrugged his shoulders, muttered that I was mad or bewitched, and followed doggedly in my tracks.

"We soon reached the kloof, which was about three hundred yards in length and but sparsely wooded, and then the real fun began. There might be a lion behind every bush--there certainly were four lions somewhere; the delicate question was, where. I peeped and poked and looked in every possible direction, with my heart in my mouth, and was at last rewarded by catching a glimpse of something yellow moving behind a bush. At the same moment, from another bush opposite me out burst one of the cubs and galloped back towards the burnt pan. I whipped round and let drive a snap shot that tipped him head over heels, breaking his back within two inches of the root of the tail, and there he lay helpless but glaring. Tom afterwards killed him with his assegai. I opened the breech of the gun and hurriedly pulled out the old case, which, to judge from what ensued, must, I suppose, have burst and left a portion of its fabric sticking to the barrel. At any rate, when I tried to, get in the new cartridge it would only enter half-way; and--would you believe it?--this was the moment that the lioness, attracted no doubt by the outcry of her cub, chose to put in an appearance. There she stood, twenty paces or so from me, lashing her tail and looking just as wicked as it is possible to conceive. Slowly I stepped backwards, trying to push in the new case, and as I did so she moved on in little runs, dropping down after each run. The danger was imminent, and the case would not go in. At the moment I oddly enough thought of the cartridge maker, whose name I will not mention, and earnestly hoped that if the lion got _me_ some condign punishment would overtake _him._ It would not go in, so I tried to pull it out. It would not come out either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut it to use the other barrel. I might as well have had no gun.

"Meanwhile I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who was creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming in a few seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from them--look, there are the scars of it to this day!"

Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four or five white cicatrices just where the wrist is set into the hand.

"But it was not of the slightest use," he went on, "the cartridge would not move. I only hope that no other man will ever be put in such an awful position. The lioness gathered herself together, and I gave myself up for lost, when suddenly Tom shouted out from somewhere in my rear--

"'You are walking on to the wounded cub; turn to the right.'

"I had the sense, dazed as I was, to take the hint, and slewing round at right-angles, but still keeping my eyes on the lioness, I continued my backward walk.

"To my intense relief, with a low growl she straightened herself, turned, and bounded further up the kloof.

"'Come on, Macumazahn,' said Tom, 'let's get back to the waggon.'

"'All right, Tom,' I answered. 'I will when I have killed those three other lions,' for by this time I was bent on shooting them as I never remember being bent on anything before or since. 'You can go if you like, or you can get up a tree.'

"He considered the position a little, and then he very wisely got up a tree. I wish that I had done the same.

"Meanwhile I had found my knife, which had an extractor in it, and succeeded after some difficulty in pulling out the cartridge which had so nearly been the cause of my death, and removing the obstruction in the barrel. It was very little thicker than a postage-stamp; certainly not thicker than a piece of writing-paper. This done, I loaded the gun, bound a handkerchief round my wrist and hand to staunch the flowing of the blood, and started on again.

"I had noticed that the lioness went into a thick green bush, or rather cluster of bushes, growing near the water, about fifty yards higher up, for there was a little stream running down the kloof, and I walked towards this bush. When I got there, however, I could see nothing, so I took up a big stone and threw it into the bushes. I believe that it hit the other cub, for out it came with a rush, giving me a broadside shot, of which I promptly availed myself, knocking it over dead. Out, too, came the lioness like a flash of light, but quick as she went I managed to put the other bullet into her ribs, so that she rolled right over three times like a shot rabbit. I instantly got two more cartridges into the gun, and as I did so the lioness rose again and came crawling towards me on her fore-paws, roaring and groaning, and with such an expression of diabolical fury on her countenance as I have not often seen. I shot her again through the chest, and she fell over on to her side quite dead.

"That was the first and last time that I ever killed a brace of lions right and left, and, what is more, I never heard of anybody else doing it. Naturally I was considerably pleased with myself, and having again loaded up, I went on to look for the black-maned beauty who had killed Kaptein. Slowly, and with the greatest care, I proceeded up the kloof, searching every bush and tuft of grass as I went. It was wonderfully exciting, work, for I never was sure from one moment to another but that he would be on me. I took comfort, however, from the reflection that a lion rarely attacks a man--rarely, I say; sometimes he does, as you will see--unless he is cornered or wounded. I must have been nearly an hour hunting after that lion. Once I thought I saw something move in a clump of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I trod out the grass I could not find him.

"At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac. It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this rock trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from its face, rose a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices and on the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes. This mass was about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the kloof here were also very steep. Well, I came to the top of the nullah and looked all round. No signs of the lion. Evidently I had either overlooked him further down or he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious; but still three lions were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be content. Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so before I had skinned those three lions. When I had got, as nearly as I could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I turned to have another look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I could see nothing at all.

"Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He had been crouching there, and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his tail, just like a living reproduction of the animal on the gateway of Northumberland House that I have seen in a picture. But he did not stand long. Before I could fire--before I could do more than get the gun to my shoulder--he sprang straight up and out from the rock, and driven by the impetus of that one mighty bound came hurtling through the air towards me.

"Heavens! how grand he looked, and how awful! High into the air he flew, describing a great arch. Just as he touched the highest point of his spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap shot at a snipe. The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great white teeth of his had met in my thigh--I heard them grate against the bone. I yelled out in agony, for I did not feel in the least benumbed and happy, like Dr. Livingstone--whom, by the way, I knew very well--and gave myself up for dead. But suddenly, at that moment, the lion's grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me, swaying to and fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing, wide opened. Then he roared, and the sound shook the rocks.

"To and fro he swung, and then the great head dropped on me, knocking all the breath from my body, and he was dead. My bullet had entered in the centre of his chest and passed out on the right side of the spine about half way down the back.

"The pain of my wound kept me from fainting, and as soon as I got my breath I managed to drag myself from under him. Thank heavens, his great teeth had not crushed my thigh-bone; but I was losing a great deal of blood, and had it not been for the timely arrival of Tom, with whose aid I loosed the handkerchief from my wrist and tied it round my leg, twisting it tight with a stick, I think that I should have bled to death.

"Well, it was a just reward for my folly in trying to tackle a family of lions single-handed. The odds were too long. I have been lame ever since, and shall be to my dying day; in the month of March the wound always troubles me a great deal, and every three years it breaks out raw.

"I need scarcely add that I never traded the lot of ivory at Sikukuni's. Another man got it--a German--and made five hundred pounds out of it after paying expenses. I spent the next month on the broad of my back, and was a cripple for six months after that. And now I've told you the yarn, so I will have a drop of Hollands and go to bed. Good-night to you all, good-night

by H. Rider Haggard

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were-- Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.

They lived with their Mother in asand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.

"Now, my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."

"Now run along, and don't get into mischief. I am going out." Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella, and went through the wood to the baker's. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries;

But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden, and squeezed under the gate!

First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes;

And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.

But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!

Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages, but he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, "Stop thief."

Peter was most dreadfully frightened; he rushed all over the garden, for he had forgotten the way back to the gate.

He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes.

After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have got away altogether if he
had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a
blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new.

Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears; but his sobs were overheard by some friendly sparrows,
who flew to him in great excitement, and implored him to exert himself.

Mr. McGregor came up with a sieve, which he intended to pop upon the top of Peter; but Peter wriggled out
just in time, leaving his jacket behind him.

And rushed into the toolshed, and jumped into a can. It would have been a beautiful thing to hide in, if it had
not had so much water in it.

Mr. McGregor was quite sure that Peter was somewhere in the toolshed, perhaps hidden underneath a flower-
pot. He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each.

Presently Peter sneezed-- "Kertyschoo!" Mr. McGregor was after him in no time,

And tried to put his foot upon Peter, who jumped out of a window, upsetting three plants. The window
was too small for Mr. McGregor, and he was tired of running after Peter. He went back to his work.

Peter sat down to rest; he was out of breath and trembling with fright, and he had not the least idea which
way to go. Also he was very damp with sitting in that can.

After a time he began to wander about, going lippity--lippity--not very fast, and looking all around.

He found a door in a wall; but it was locked, and there was no room for a fat little rabbit to squeeze underneath.

An old mouse was running in and out over the stone doorstep, carrying peas and beans to her family in the
wood. Peter asked her the way to the gate, but she had such a large pea in her mouth that she could not answer. She only shook her head at him. Peter began to cry.

Then he tried to find his way straight across the garden, but he became more and more puzzled.
Presently, he came to a pond where Mr. McGregor filled his water-cans. A white cat was staring at some
goldfish; she sat very, very still, but now and then the tip of her tail twitched as if it were alive. Peter
thought it best to go away without speaking to her; he has heard about cats from his cousin, little Benjamin Bunny.

He went back towards the toolshed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he heard the noise of a hoe--scr-
r-ritch, scratch, scratch, scritch. Peter scuttered underneath the bushes. But presently, as nothing happened, he
came out, and climbed upon a wheelbarrow, and peeped over. The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor
hoeing onions. His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate!

Peter got down very quietly off the wheelbarrow, and started running as fast as he could go, along a straight
walk behind some black-currant bushes.

Mr. McGregor caught sight of him at the corner, but Peter did not care. He slipped underneath the gate, and
was safe at last in the wood outside the garden.

Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scare-crow to frighten the blackbirds.

Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir-tree.

He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole, and shut his
eyes. His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the second little
jacket and pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a fortnight!

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.

His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter!

"One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time."

But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.

by Beatrix Potter

 He was probably best known for his undersea adventures on TV, but Lloyd Bridges also appeared in over 180 other theatrical films, TV movies, and TV series over the course of his career.

Born in Northern California in 1913, Bridges began acting while a student at UCLA. He actually began his professional career on Broadway, and while he appeared in two films in 1936, didn't begin making movies in earnest until 1941.

Fifty of his appearances during the early days were bit parts in B-movies, westerns and comedy shorts between 1941 and 1944. However, he also showed up uncredited in some pretty good movies, including Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Sahara, and The Talk of the Town. Eventually his patience and durability were rewarded with lead roles in She's a Soldier Too (1944) and the Universal serial, Secret Agent X-9 (1945). He later appeared in larger roles in A Walk in the Sun (1945), Canyon Passage (1946), Unconquered (1947), the underrated Home of the Brave (1949), and The Sound of Fury (1950), the latter as an insane killer, perhaps his best overall performance. Presaging his later TV career, he starred in 16 Fathoms Deep (1948), but the better-known Lon Chaney, Jr. got higher billing. He did get star billing in Rocketship X-M (1950), an early sci-fi effort notable for its serious themes and downbeat ending.

Probably his most high profile supporting role during this period was as the traitorous deputy in High Noon (1952). A few years later he appeared as one of Katharine Hepburn's brothers in The Rainmaker (1956).

Bridges was a member of the progressive Actors Lab in the 1930s, a membership which returned to haunt him 20 years later during the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s. He testified and was allowed to resume his career, which in 1958 led him to television and a smash hit with Sea Hunt (1958). The weekly underwater drama became the most popular syndicated show in the history of television. Later attempts at network TV shows were not as successful, however.

In the 1980s he launched what was in reality a second movie career, this time as a comic supporting actor in films such as Airplane (1980) and a sequel, Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), and Hot Shots (1991) and its sequel. He also appeared in many TV movies and mini-series, including Roots (1977), East of Eden (1981), and The Blue and the Gray (1982), and showed up in numerous guest roles on weekly TV shows, most notably Seinfeld, as the unforgettable Izzy Mandelbaum.

Bridges was the scion of a three-generation acting family. His wife of 50 years, Dorothy, was also an actress, and he always credited her with his successful career. His two sons, Beau and Jeff, are well-known and have appeared with him many times. He has four grandchildren who have also appeared in films, most notably Beau's son Jordan Bridges.

Lloyd Bridges died on March 10, 1998 of natural causes at the age of 85.

Kathleen Morrison, Aug. 19, 1902, Port Huron, Mich. d. 1988.
                  Popular star of Hollywood silent and early talkies who at the
                  height of her career personified the independent ``flapper'' of
                  the Roaring Twenties and strongly influenced the hairstyle and
                  fashions of the period. The daughter of an irrigation engineer,
                  she was convent educated and later studied piano at the
                  Detroit Conservatory. According to her autobiography, Silent
                  Star (1968), she was taken into films as repayment by D. W.
                  Griffith to her uncle, Walter Howey (editor of the Chicago
                  Examiner, who was immortalized by Hecht-MacArthur in The
                  Front Page), for helping Griffith clear The Birth of a Nation and
                  Intolerance through the censors. Contrary to many sources,
                  she never appeared in Intolerance, not even as an extra, having
                  arrived in Hollywood in 1917, the year following the picture's
                  release. She began her screen career modestly, as a leading
                  lady in B pictures and Westerns, several times opposite Tom
                  Mix, but in the 20s she gained sudden popularity as a star as an
                  exuberant flapper, portraying bobbed haired, lighthearted
                  jazz age heroines in many films for First National. Her first
                  (1923---30) of four husbands, John McCormick, was production
                  head of that company, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Her next
                  two husbands were stockbrokers and she herself successfully
                  invested her earnings from films (she was among Hollywood's
                  highest paid stars) in the stock market. In 1983, aged 81, she
                  married a building contractor who survived her. She authored,
                  in addition to her autobiography, a book on investments, How
                  Women Can Make Money in the Stock Market, and a book
                  about a prized collection of miniatures, Colleen Moore's Doll
                  House.- Ephriam Katz

Maria Montez, also known as The Carribean Cyclone, was born Maria Africa Vidal de Santo Silas, on June 6 1917 in Barahona, Dominican Republic, to a Spanish consul and his wife.

After a stint with modeling, she made an attempt at Hollywood.

Maria's unusal beauty landed her a contract in the movie colony. Her first film was as Marie in THE INVISIBLE WOMAN in 1941. Five more movies with five more bit roles followed and the movie moguls decided to do something more with the beautiful Miss Montez.

They gave her a sizable role in THE BOSS OF BULLION CITY in 1941. That was followed the next year by ARABIAN NIGHTS. It was these sand and sandal epics of the forties that kept Maria employed and moviegoers enthralled. The US was still trying to get out from under The Great Depression. And they were also tired of the world war that was spreading throughout Europe and Asia. Hollywood turned to fantasy movies for the public.

Maria turned out to be immensly popular with the public. Her acting skills may not have been appreciated by some critics, but the public didn't seem to mind. They liked Maria and the dangers she faced in these cheaply made adventure flicks. Each desert film attracted droves of Montez fans to the box-office.

As the Depression eased and the war ended, fans became bored with her films.

After her Hollywood career faded, she moved to Europe with her second husband Jean-Pierre Aumont. She appeared in a number of German, French, and Italian productions. Her final film was a German movie entitled SCHATTEN UBER NEAPAL (CAMORRA) in 1951.

On September 7 of that year, Maria was discovered dead of a heart attack. She was only 34 and had appeared in only 27 movies. But her legacy lives on in the colorful characterizations that she left on film. She is still a much loved figure in movie history.

In his book you will find many heart-warming stories, sentiments, and recollections from people who loved Billy Barty. He was not only founder of the organization “The Little People of America,” but was in entertainment for more than seventy years. You will read excerpts from George Lucas, A.C. Lyles, Ed Asner, Pat Boone, Peter Marshall, Willie Aames, Florence Henderson, Ruta Lee, and Betty White, among a host of other well-known celebrities.

You will reminisce with some of the cast from the series Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons, and will laugh at memories from comedians and impressionists John Byner, Bob Einstein, Fred Travalena, Ruth Buzzi, and Norm Crosby.

You will have compassion as you read a touching sentimental account of a young cancer victim, Erik, who was sparked by Billy Barty’s unique voice, and will get insight from members of the organization “The Little People of America.”

Lastly, you will be inspired from fans and family alike in this wonderful tribute to their friend, co-worker, brother, uncle, dad, and hero—Billy Barty.

This article was originally written in May, 1999, in celebration of the Astaire Centennial. It has been updated several times since then.)

Many say he was the greatest dancer in movie history. Some even say he was one of the greatest jazz singers. His acting ability improved with age; in fact, his first and only Oscar nomination came in 1975, for Best Supporting Actor in The Towering Inferno, when he was 76 years old. On the other hand, there was the studio drone whose opinion reportedly was, "Can't act. Slightly bald. Also dances."

Balding or not, there has never been anybody else quite like Fred Astaire. He made 51 theatrical films and TV movies, and not one of them could be called "bad." Even The Over-the-Hill-Gang Rides Again (1970) and The Amazing Dobermans (1976) were enlivened by his presence.

With Ginger Rogers, who did everything Fred did, but backwards, he was one-half of the most famous dance team ever. He was also a master choreographer, known for a perfectionism that was in stark contrast to what appeared to be an almost effortless grace on the screen.

You can learn almost anything you want to about Fred Astaire and his long career by visiting the sites listed in this four-part article.

Though known these days mostly because of her eight films with Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald also had a career that existed outside of that duo, making a total of 28 films during a 20-year career, most showcasing her lovely soprano voice with its impressive range.

Born Jeanette Anna MacDonald on June 18, 1903 in Philadelphia, Jeannette was trained as a dancer and then a singer, performing at an early age, and eventually starring on Broadway before beginning her film career in 1929, at the dawn of the sound era.

She was a star from the very beginning. In fact, her first film, The Love Parade (1929), also made Maurice Chevalier a star, and put Ernst Lubitsch into the top ranks of directors. It was not the only pairing of MacDonald and Chevalier, but studio decisions resulted in another male co-star becoming her better-known companion.

Jeanette was first paired with Nelson Eddy in Naughty Marietta (1935), and Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy became the biggest musical team of their era, making seven more films together during the 30s and 40s. Their fans were legion, and they still have plenty of devotees, even 60 years after their heyday. It may have been cornball to some critics, but it was successful, popular, and well-sung corn.

Jeanette's film career slowed after the early 1940s, although she performed before sold-out audiences in stage musicals and operas, and she eventually retired from films after her 1949 appearance in The Sun Comes Up, a Lassie film. She made a few personal appearances, and recorded a best-selling album of songs with Eddy, but there were no more movies.

Married to actor Gene Raymond since 1937, she concentrated on her family until her death in 1965 from heart disease at the age of 61. We saluted her with this tribute on what would have been her 100th birthday, and invite you to enjoy some of the links listed below. If you haven't heard her sing, be sure to listen to any available sound clips.

A guy tells his psychiatrist: ‘It was terrible. I was away on business, and I wired my wife that I’d be back a day early. I rushed home from the airport and found her in bed with my best friend. I don’t get it. How could she do this to me?" "Well," says the psychiatrist. "Maybe she didn’t get your telegram."

Tower, British Airways one-seven, completed rollout, awaiting further instruction

British Airways one-seven, this is Hamburg ground, clear to taxi to Gate Seven."

Roger, Hamburg ground, request directions to Gate Seven."

British Airways one-seven, have you never been to Hamburg before?"

Yes, a number of times, Hamburg ground, in 1944, but we did not stop!"

On some air bases the Air Force is on one side of the field and civilian aircraft use the other side of the field, with the control tower in the middle.One day the tower received a call from an aircraft asking, "What time is it?" The tower responded, "Who is calling?" The aircraft replied, "What difference does it make?" The tower replied "It makes a lot of difference.

If it is an American Airlines flight, it is 3 o'clock.

If it is an Air Force plane, it is 1500 hours.

If it is a Navy aircraft, it is 6 bells.

If it is an Army aircraft, the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 3.

If it is a Marine Corps aircraft, it's Thursday afternoon and 120 minutes to "Happy Hour."

How does a blonde kill a fish?

She drowns it ...

How do you get a blonde on the roof?

Tell her drinks are on the house.

Why did the blonde stare at frozen orange juice can for 2 hours?

Because it said 'concentrate'

Why are all dumb blonde jokes one-liners?

So men can remember them.

A blonde, a redhead, and a brunette went into a farm to steal chickens. The police were nearby and they heard them and came in. The girls quickly jumped into three potato sacks so they wouldn't be seen.

One policeman kicked the sack with the redhead, and she said "meow" pretending to be a cat.

He kicked the second one with the brunette, and she said "ruff", pretending to be a dog.

When he kicked the third sack with the blonde, she said "potatoes".

A gorgeous young redhead goes into the doctor's office and said that her body hurt wherever she touched it.

"Impossible!" says the doctor. "Show me."

The redhead took her finger, pushed on her left breast and screamed, then she pushed her elbow and screamed in even more. She pushed her knee and screamed; likewise she pushed her ankle and screamed. Everywhere she touched made her scream.

The doctor said, "You're not really a redhead, are you?

"Well, no" she said, "I'm actually a blonde."

"I thought so," the doctor said. "Your finger is broken."

Why do blondes hate M&Ms?

They're too hard to peel.

An airline captain was helping a new blonde flight attendant prepare for her first overnight trip. Upon their arrival, the captain showed the flight attendant the best place for airline personnel to eat, shop and stay overnight.

The next morning as the pilot was preparing the crew for the day's route, he noticed the new stewardess was missing. He knew which room she was in at the hotel and called her up to ask what happened to her.

She answered the phone, crying, and said, "I can't get out of the room!"

"You can't get out of your room?" the captain asked. "Why not?"

She replied, "There are only three doors in here," she sobbed, "one is the bathroom, one is the closet, and one has a sign on it that says 'Do Not Disturb'!"

A police officer stops a blonde for speeding and asks her very nicely if he could see her license.

She replies in a huff, "I wish you guys would get your act together. Just yesterday you take away my license and then today you expect me to show it to you!"

A ventriloquist comes onto the stage with his dummy and starts his act. One bit requires his dummy to tell Dumb-Blonde Jokes. After a few jokes, an angry blonde woman finally stands up and starts speaking her mind.

"I have had it with the stereotyping of all blondes being stupid!" the woman yells, and she continues ranting on about this.

Finally, the ventriloquist says, "Sorry ma'am ..."

The woman cuts him off by saying, "You stay out of this. I'm talkin' to the dummy."

A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead all work for a construction crew. One day, they were on their lunch break, sitting on a beam thirty stories high. They all note that they've had the same lunch for as long as they were on the job. They agreed if they opened their lunchboxes and found the same lunch, they would all hurl themselves off the beam.

The next day, the police are investigating the scene where the three women fell. When the police asked the husbands of the women, the brunette and the redhead's husbands both said, "If I had known, I would have given her something different." However, the blonde's husband said, "Don't look at me, she packs her own lunch."

What's the Blonde's cheer?

"I'm blonde, I'm blonde, I'm B.L.O.N. ... ah, oh well ... I'm blonde, I'm blonde, yea yea yea ..."

A blonde is on a four-engine plane crossing the Atlantic.

All of a sudden there's a loud bang. The pilot announces over the intercom ”I'm sorry, one of our engines has just shut off. We'll be delayed 45 minutes.“

Suddenly there's another bang. Once again, the intercom clicks on and the pilot expresses his regret that they'll be delayed two hours.

Shortly thereafter, there is third bang and the pilot announces that they'll be delayed 3 hours.

The blonde turns to the guy sitting beside her and says, ”Man, if the fourth engine shuts off we'll be up here all day.“

Once there was a blonde driving home from work when she saw a sheep farm. She stops and asks the farmer if she can have a sheep. The farmer says "If you can count all my sheep I'll let you have any one you want." The blonde looks around her for a moment and says, "You have 356 sheep." The farmer exclaims, "Wow -- you're exactly right. I guess blondes really aren't dumb. Now go pick yourself out a sheep."

The blonde makes her choice, picks it up, comes back to the farmer to thank him. "Oh no," he says, "you can't have that one." "Why not?" asks the blonde, "you said I could have any sheep I wanted." And the farmer says, "Ma'am, that's my dog.

Act naturally
Found missing
Resident alien
Advanced BASIC
Genuine imitation
Airline food
Good grief
Same difference
Almost exactly
Government organization
Sanitary landfill
Alone together
Legally drunk
Silent scream
British fashion
Living dead
Small crowd
Business ethics
Soft rock
Butt head
Military intelligence
Software […]

For Restrooms, Go back towards your behind

Diet water: Half the calories of regular water, but with all of the taste!

English is our language. No Excetions!

  Quit stealing our letters

this film name "the girls next door"in my openion i think it is very facanathing and interesting.i suggest you to see it .it is unbeleveble .it has good and beautiful actors and actress and they play like real.

this film is about a boy name "mattew"who wants to be president in the future.he doesn 't do any crasything in his whole life.3 mounts before he get gruguate ,evryone who is going to be gruaguated soon taking a paper and write theire crasiest do in that paper.but when it come to mattew he coulden 't write anything.he gets so upset and he want to do something but he coulden 't and fear of this kind don 't let him to done it.in one night he see he find new nighberhood and when he see the girl,he fell in her love.he go to his room upstaires and see that girl,but she is put out her clouds and going to be stripps and the boy see her.at this time suddenly the girl know about it and turn off the lamp and go to his house and want 's his parrents to let him to show her around.between the way that girl force him to be strippes in the moiddle of the street and ....

i think you better see countinute of this film by your self 

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was born on 12 July, 1904, in the town of Parral in Chile. His father was a railway employee and his mother, who died shortly after his birth, a teacher. Some years later his father, who had then moved to the town of Temuco, remarried doña Trinidad Candia Malverde. The poet spent his childhood and youth in Temuco, where he also got to know Gabriela Mistral, head of the girls' secondary school, who took a liking to him.here is adapted a few poem of him

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

 I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

Love Sonnet XVII

 do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep

 If You Forget Me 

Morning

They earn an enormous amount of money
For memorizing two hours worth of dialogue
Then pretending to be someone else
Doing it so well that we believe them
Paying them all that money
To do something we all left behind us
In Childhood.
In their world
All problems are solved in two hours
And after being bloodily slaughtered
Folks get up and go out for a power lunch
Bodyguards protect their backs
Maids clean their homes
Nannies watch their children&
Temporary Queens and Kings of their domains
Until someone younger, more beautiful
Pushes them off the pinnacle
The worst tragedy of their sphere
To become a has been&

&so when a war started far away
To save a people who were really dying
Who were tortured and enslaved
To protect us from a valid enemy
Is it any wonder that these people
Who are so far from our reality
Would side more with the man
Who owns the palaces
Than face that strange thing
Anathema to their profession
That thing called reality?

Perhaps we should leave them to their world
Where silly little statues matter
And Human Suffering doesn't
Peace signs another accessory
To fancy dress
Perhaps a little boycott
Will remind them that real life
Is not lines learned
Life and death matters
Are not solved in two hours.

by: P-MAN 

The Constitution of the United States
Allows Susan Sarandon to protest the war
The First Amendment allows Sean Penn
To take tea with Saddam in Baghdad
The Constitution of the United States
Allows a Dixie Chick to publicly proclaim
She is ashamed of her Texas President.
The Constitution of the United States
Allows Martin Sheen to call the same president
A moron; a bad comic
Without fear of prosecution
Without government interference
No one will come to their door
In the middle of the night
Take them away
Never to be heard from again
It is their inalienable right.

The Free Enterprise System in this country
Allows me to boycott Susan, Sean; Sheen and Chick
The First Amendment allows me
To tell one and all how I feel.
The Armed Forces of the United States
Sends our sons and daughters
Our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers
To fight and sometimes die defending
The Constitution of the United States
That allows Susan Sarandon to protest;
Sean to drink tea;
A Chick to be ashamed
And Sheen to be sarcastic
That same Constitution
Allows us to boycott them
To let them know
How ashamed of them
We feel.

Yet even while I flinch at their ignorance
And boycott their performances
I know this is why we fight
This simple freedom
That allows even the foolish
A voice
Is worth dying for.

BY: P-MAN

Never say I love you
If you really don't care
Never talk about feelings
If they aren't really there
Never hold my hand
If you are going to break my heart
Never say you are going to
If you don't plan to start
Never look into my eyes
If all you do is lie
Never say hello
If you really mean good bye
If you really mean forever
Then say you will try
Never say forever

Cause forever makes me cry

A Mother's love is something
that no on can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendoured miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God's tender guiding hand

by:Helen Steiner Rice

I wish we had time to hear you cry.
I wish we had time to hear you laugh,
I wish we had time to watch you play ...
To see you become your own person.

I wish we had time to comfort you,
When you were sad,
And time to share your joy,
When you were happy.
I wish we had time to show you
What we can about life ...

I wish we had time to protect you ...

You will be in our thoughts forever.
I wish we had a lifetime

Bill Gates suddenly dies and finds himself face to face with God. God stood over Bill Gates and said, 'Well Bill, I'm really confused on this one. It's a tough decision; I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you helped society enormously by putting a computer in almost every home in America, yet you also created that ghastly Windows '95 among other indiscretions. I believe I'll do something I've never done before; I'll let you decide where you want to go.'

Bill pushed up his glasses, looked up at God and replied, 'Could you briefly explain the difference between the two?' Looking slightly puzzled, God said, 'Better yet, why don't I let you visit both places briefly, then you can make your decision. Which do you choose to see first, Heaven or Hell?'

Bill played with his pocket protector for a moment, then looked back at God and said, 'I think I'll try Hell first.' So, with a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke, Bill Gates went to Hell.

When he materialized in Hell, Bill looked around. It was a beautiful and clean place, a bit warm, with sandy beaches and tall mountains, clear skies, pristine water, and beautiful women frolicking about. A smile came across Bill's face as he took in a deep breath of the clean air. 'This is great,' he thought, 'if this is Hell, I can't wait to see heaven.'

Within seconds of his thought, another flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke appeared, and Bill was off to Heaven. Heaven was a place high above the clouds, where angels were drifting about playing their harps and singing in a beautiful chorus. It was a very nice place, Bill thought, but not as enticing as Hell.

Bill looked up, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled for God and Bill Gates was sent to Hell for eternity.

Time passed, and God decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was progressing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill Gates shackled to a wall in a dark cave amid bone thin men and tongues of fire, being burned and tortured by demons.

'So, how is everything going?' God asked.

Bill responded with a crackling voice filled with anguish and disappointment, 'This is awful! It's nothing like the Hell I visited the first time!! I can't believe this is happening! What happened to the other place....with the beaches and the mountains and the beautiful women?

'That was the demo,' replied God. 

Brahma
Systems Installation

Vishnu
Systems Administration & Support

Lakshmi
Finance and Accounts consultant

Saraswati
Training and Knowledge Management

Shiva
DBA (Crash Specialist)

Ganesh
Quality Assuarance & Documentation

Narada
Data transfer

Yama
Reorganization & Downsizing Consultant

Chitragupta
IDP & Personal Records

Apsaras
Downloadable Viruses

Devas
Mainframe Programmers

Surya
Solaris Administrator

Rakshasas
In house Hackers

Ravan
Internet Explorer WWWF

Kumbhakarnan
Zombie Process

Lakshman
Support Software and Backup Hanuman Linux/s390

Vaali
MS Windows

Sugreeva
DOS

Jatayu
Firewall

Dronacharya
System Programmer

Vishwamitra
Sr. Manager Projects

Shakuni
Annual appraisal & Promotion

Valmiki
Technical Writer (Ramayana Sign off document)

Krishna
SDLC ( Sudarshan Wheel Development Life Cycle )

Dharmaraj Yudhishthira
ISO Consultant (CMM level 5)

Arjun
Lead Programmer (all companies are vying for him)

Abhimanyu
Trainee Programmer

Draupadi
Motivation & Team building

Bhima
MAINFRAME LEGACY SYSTEM

Duryodhana
Microsoft product Written in VB

Karna
Contract programmer

Dhrutarashtra
Visual C++

Gandhari
Dreamweaver

100 Kauravas
Microsoft Service Packs and patches

1. Newton's Method:
Let, the lion catch you.
For every action there is equal and opposite reaction.
Implies you caught lion .

2. Einstein Method:
Run in the direction opposite to that of the lion.
Due to higher relative velocity, the lion will also
run faster and will get tired soon.
Now you can trap it easily.

3. Schrodinger Method:
At any given moment, there is a positive probability
that lion to be in the cage.
So set the trap, sit down and wait!

4. Inverse Transformation Method
We place a spherical cage in the forest
and enter it.
Perform an inverse transformation with
respect to lion.
Lion is in and we are out.

5. Thermodynamic Procedure:
We construct a semi-permeable membrane which allows
every thing to pass it except lions.
Then sweep the entire forest with it.

6. Integration Differention Method:
Integrate the forest over the entire area.
The lion is some where in the result.
So differentiate the result PARTIALLY w.r.t lion
to trace out the lion.

7. The Banta's Method:
DON'T EVEN TRY. YOU'LL GET CAUGHT BY THE LION. 

A physician, a civil engineer, and a consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.

The physician remarked, "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The civil engineer interrupted, and said, "But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The consultant leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?" 

Five cannibals (Man eaters) get appointed as programmers in an IT company.
During the welcoming ceremony the boss says: "You're all part of our team
now. You can earn good money here, and you can go to the company canteen
for something to eat. So don't trouble the other employees". The cannibals
promise not to trouble the other employees.

Four weeks later the boss returns and says: "You're all working very
hard, and I'm very satisfied with all of you. One of our developers has
disappeared however. Do any of you know what happened to her?" The
cannibals disown all knowledge of the missing developer. After the boss
has left, the leader of the cannibals says to the others: "Which of you
idiots ate the developer?"

One of the cannibals raises his hand hesitantly, to which the leader of
the cannibals says: "You FOOL! For four weeks we've been eating team
leaders, managers, and project managers and no-one has noticed anything,
and now YOU ate one developer and it got noticed. So hereafter please
don't eat a person who is working." 

Howard County Police officers still write their reports by hand, and the data is entered later by a computer tech into their database. One theft report stated that a farmer had lost 2,025 pigs. Thinking that to be an error, the tech called the farmer directly.

"Is it true Mr. (Smith) that you lost 2,025 pigs?" she asked.

"Yeth." lisped the farmer.

Being a Howard County girl herself, the tech entered: "Subject lost 2 sows and 25 pigs."

A woman went to a pet shop and immediately spotted a large, beautiful parrot. There was a sign on the cage that said $50.00, which seemed awfully cheap.

"Why so little," she asked the pet storeowner.

The owner looked at her seriously and said, "Look, I should tell you first that this bird used to live in a house of Prostitution and sometimes it says some pretty vulgar stuff." The woman thought about this, but decided she had to have the bird anyway. She took it home and hung the bird's cage up in her living room and waited for it to say something. The bird looked around the room, then at her, and said, "New house, new madam."

The woman was a bit shocked at the implication, but then found it kind of amusing.

When her two teenage daughters returned from school, the bird saw them enter and said, "New house, new madam, new girls."

The girls and the woman were a bit offended but then began to laugh about the situation considering how and where the parrot had been raised.

Moments later, the woman's husband came home from work.

The bird looked at him and said, "Hi, Nick! New arrivals.... want? 25% off now

Two Teenage boys were picked up for doing drugs. When they went to court the judge said that he would like to give them a second chance if they could work in the community and convince young people not to do drugs they would avoid jail time.

The two boys went to the community and did their work and returned to court the following month. The judge asked the first boy how he did and he told the judge that he convinced 30 people not to do drugs.

The judge said, "That was great how did you do that?"

The Boy told him, "I used a diagram, your honor. I drew two circles like this: O o and told them this (the big circle) is your brain before drugs and this (small circle) is your brain after drugs."

"That's admirable," said the judge. "And you, how did you do?" (to the 2nd boy)

"Well, your honor, I persuaded 156 people to give up drugs forever."

"156 people! That's amazing! How did you manage to do that!"

"Well, I used the same two circles. I pointed to the small circle and told them, 'This is your asshole before prison.'" 

Once, there was a man who was upset by his past deeds that he decided to visit a church and confess all of his sins. When he arrived at the church, he walked to the confession area and spoke to the pastor.

"Father, I am sinful."
"Yes son, just tell me what have you done, the Lord will forgive you."

"Father, I have a steady relationship with my girlfriend, it's been 3 years and nothing serious ever happened between us. Yesterday, I visited her house, nobody was at home except for her sister. We were alone and I slept with her."

"That's bad my boy, fortunately you realize your mistake."

"Father, last week I went to her office to look for her, but nobody was around except for one of her colleagues, so I slept with her too."

"That's not very good of you."

"Father, last month, I went to her uncle's house to look for her, nobody was around except for her auntie, and I slept with her too."

"Father? ......... Father?" suddenly this guy realized that there was no response from the Father, he walked over and discovered that the Pastor was not there. So he began searching for him. "Father? Where are you?"

He searched high and low, and finally he found him hiding under the table behind the piano. "Father, why are you hiding here?" "Sorry son, suddenly I remembered there is nobody around here except me." 

Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy 

A young couple was touring southern Florida on their honeymoon and stopped at one of the rattlesnake farms along the road.

After seeing the sights, they engaged in small talk with the man that handled the snakes.

"Wow!" exclaimed the new bride. "You certainly have a dangerous job. Do you ever get bitten?"

"Yes, upon rare occasions," answered the handler.

"Well," she continued, "just what do you do when you're bitten by a snake?"

"I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I am bitten, I make deep criss-cross marks across the fang entry and then suck the poison from the wound."

"What, uh... what would happen if you were to accidentally sit on a rattler?" persisted the woman.

"Ma'am," answered the snake handler, "that will be the day I learn who my real friends are." 

1) That's not right.................................... Sum Ting Wong

2) Are you harboring a fugitive................... Hu Yu Hai Ding

3) See me ASAP.......................................... Kum Hia Nao

4) Stupid Man............................................. Dum Fuk

5) Small horse........................................ Tai Ni Po Ni

6) Did you go to the beach?....................... Wai Yu So Tan

7) I bumped in to a coffee table........... Ai Bang Mai Fa Kin Ni

8) I think you need a face lift...................... Chin Tu Fat

9) It's very dark in here.............................. Wao So Dim

10) I thought you were on a diet............... Wai Yu Mun Ching

11) This is a tow away zone....................... No Pah King

12) staying out of sight.............................. Lei Ying Lo

13) He's cleaning his automobile................ Wa Shing Ka

14) Your body odor is offensive.................. Yu Stin Ki Pu

15) Great.................................................. Fa Kin Su Pah 

Customer : If I post this letter tonight, will it get to Delhi in
two days time?
Post Master : Yes sir, it definitely will.
Customer : I bet you, it won't.
Post Master : Why not?
Customer : It's addressed to Mumbai. 

once a guy goes back to india from america. once home, he meets his dad and tells him that he got him this pill called viagra. the dad goes i have tried alot of pills, and nothing works. the son says, try it and if you like it, put 100 rupees under my pillow. the next mornin he looks under his pillow and finds 500 rupees. the son goes to his dad and say whyd u put 500 rupees instead of a 100 rupees. the dad says, puttat me te 100 rupees he rakhe si, mere baad teri bibi 400 ruppes rakh gaye. 

A man filed for divorce with his wife and when called in front of the judge, said ' I want to divorce my wife because I am not sexually satisfied with her'

So the wife replied, 'Thats not true sire, if you want to know ask the rest of the men in our society' 

Customer: "How much is that banana for?"
Salesperson: "$1.00"
Customer: "Can you sell it to me for 60 cents?"
Salesperson: "At that rate, you'll only get the banana peel!"
Customer: "Okay... I'll buy the banana for 40 cents, but you can keep the peel!"

desi teacher urdu ki class perha raha thaa aur uski zip khuli wi thi 2 female students dekh ker hasna lagein toh teacher bolaa,zada hasssi arahi ha toh bahar nikal ker KHURAA ker doon ganna. 

There was a blonde driving down the road one day. She glanced to her right and noticed another blonde sitting in a nearby field. She was in a boat rowing, with no water in sight. The blonde angrily pulled her car over and yelled at the rowing blonde, What do you think you're doing? It's things like this that give us blondes a bad name. If I could swim, I'd come out there and kick your butt! 

Q: What's the diff between a blonde and a computer?

A: You only have to punch information into a computer once 

once a blond was driving a car very rashly and in a zig zag way. a policeman caught him, asked him why he was driving car in such a way is he drunk. blond answered i am learning how to drive a car. policeman inquired where is teacher. he replied this is correspondence course ! 

Day1:
A blonde comes home from school and says to her mum,"We learned how to count up to 5 today mummy. I got up to 10. Is it because I'm blonde, mummy?"
Mum replies: "yes dear"

Day 2:
"We learned how to do the alphabet today mummy. The others only got up to E and I got up to S. Is it because I'm blonde, mummy?"
Mum replies: "yes dear"

Day 3:
"We learned about breasts today mummy. All the other girls are flat chested and I'm a 36DD. Is it because I'm blonde, mummy?"
Mum replies: "No dear, it's because your 25. 

a bengali and indian and a english and a PAKI enter into a bar...all of a sudden the bengali throw's his glass in the air takes out his shot gun and shoot's it....hes say's"Glasses in bangledesh are so cheap u dont use with the same one twice....soon the indian throws his glass in the air and shoot's it...he too says that glasses in indian are so cheap u dont use the same one twice....The enlish throws his glass in the air shoot's it then shoots the PAKI.....He says that there are soooo PAKI'S in ENGLAND u dont drink with the same one twice

Exercise in the United States

Question: Hi Teacher Joe. I travelled to the United States last month and was surprised to see so many overweight people. I thought Americans were very active and liked to play sports. Do people ever excercise there? Mr. Li in Lanzhou

Answer: Hello Mr. Li in Lanzhou! Every time I return home, I am shocked by the size of some people. Though these large people do stand out, especially compared to the people in Asia, it is still a small percentage of the people. Many people try to maintain their health, though with various levels of success. Here are the most popular forms of exercise in the United States

1. Competitive Sports: It seems Americans spend more and more time watching sports on TV, but we still love to play sports too. If you go through my hometown when the weather is nice, you'll find people playing all kinds of sports. There are plenty of free tennis and basketball courts, as well as grass fields for soccer or baseball. There are public golf courses that are not too expensive. Indoors, people also play basketball, and ice hockey is popular in the northern United States

2. Jogging: Many people run for exercise. They run slowly along the streets and in the parks. They run early in the morning, during their lunch hour, after work, or late at night. They run in just about any weather, including rain and snow. You can see joggers just about any time of the day or night, except maybe in the business district

3. Walking: For some people, jogging is too hard on the joints - knees and ankles take a lot of punishment while running, even if the running is just a slow jog. So, more and more people have taken up walking. My sister often goes out walking during her lunch hour, and even carries weights in each hand to make it more challenging. In the winter, some people go to the indoor shopping malls just to walk, not to shop. In fact, they often go before any of the stores are open, and just walk through the whole mall many times. They usually walk with friends so they can chat together, making their exercise go by more quickly

4. Aerobics: Many women, and even some men, use this dance-like exercise to stay in shape. It gets the heart rate up to an "optimum" level for losing weight, and has a "cool down" stage at the end to help the heart recover. There are three general ways to do aerobics. You can go to a gym where there's a live teacher; you can watch a teacher on TV and follow along; or you an buy a video and follow along. They gym is the most interesting, as many women wear tight, colorful clothes to show off how successful they've been! However, going to a gym can be expensive, and it's not the most convenient way to exercise. It's much more convenient to stay at home and follow along with the TV. Buying a video is even more convenient, since you can use it whenever you have free time, however, with a video there's very little variety

5. Weightlifting: With the continued popularity of Arnold Schwartzenegger, who is Governor of California as this is being written, more and more people (and not just men!) are taking up weightlifting. Not many people reach the point where they can show off their muscles on stage, but the positive health effects of "body building" are available to anyone willing to work at it two or three times a week. Most gyms in my hometown are quite full on evenings and weekends and I have to admit that I work with weights when I have the time. I find that the day after a hard workout, I have much more energy than usual, even though my muscles may hurt

6. Noncompetitive Sports: When the weather is good in my hometown, you can see people bicycling and roller skating wherever you go. Fortunately, my hometown is not so big with only about 200,000 inhabitants, so there are plenty of places for cyclists and skaters. For indoor exercise, swimming and ice skating are also popular in my hometown. In recent years, yoga has become more and more popular

So you see, Mr. Li, there are all kinds of ways Americans use to try to stay in shape. Of course, it doesn't help if people eat too much fast food or snack foods, which is why you see so many overweight Americans. As a result, there are all kinds of diet plans in the U.S. Some diets aim at general good health, while others aim at fast weight loss. If you're interested, you can read more about diets HERE. Well, I have to go get some exercise. I think I'll head to the gym! Maybe I'll see you there

Are there only fast-food restaurants in America

Question: Hi Teacher Joe! I read that there are more than 20,000 "fast food" restaurants in the United States. There must be afast food restaurant on every corner! My American friend says there are many regular restaurants in America too, but I can't believe it. Where are these restaurants and what are they like? From Hanako in Japan

Answer: Hello Hanako. We do have many kinds of restaurants in America. In my hometown, there are many more "regular" restaurants than fast food restaurants. Since my hometown is quite small, we only have 5 or 6 Japanese restaurants. Actually, most of the people who work there are Chinese or Korean, but at least the style is Japanese. On the other hand, there are probably more Chinese restaurants than there are KFC's. We also have from almost any country in the world - Indian food, Thai food, Ethiopian food, Greek food, whatever!

We have another type of restaurant that I used to like but now hate: "all you can eat" restaurants. Economically, these restaurants are great, because you pay only one price and then can take as much food as you want, as many times as you want. You can stay there for hours and hours. Nobody will complain or throw you out. Although these restaurants are a good way to save money, they are very bad for our health. If you see the customers who go to such restaurants, you will know what I mean. Most of the men who go in look like they will soon give birth to a child. Or two. Or maybe a cow! I mean, they're HUGE!

In addition, there are two kinds of restaurants that I like, which you may not see in Japan, or in other countries. First, we have fast food restaurants that are not large chains. These restaurants usually have much better food than the American fast food restaurants you know. For example, a hamburger in a small fast food restaurant will be much bigger than a McDonald's hamburger and will be served on delicious bread, rather than the plastic-tasting stuff you get in the chain restaurants. Or, if you go to a small pizzeria in my hometown, you can get pizza that is not only much better than at Pizza Hut, but is as good as any pizza I tasted in Italy!

The second type of typical American restaurant is called a "roadside diner". The food served in diners is much more similar to what people eat in their own homes. Foods like meatloaf and mashed potatoes are very popular both in homes and diners! Besides meat and potatoes, you can get all kinds of vegetable dishes and salads, as well as mouth-watering desserts. If you are ever travelling in the United States, you should look for a diner and try some REAL American food.

When I travel, I often stop in McDonald's or KFC because it's quick and easy, and I know what I'll be getting. However, when I am back in the U.S., I almost never go to fast food chain restaurants. There are too many other delicious choices out there!

1. as easy as pie means "very easy" (same as "a piece of cake")
Example: He said it is a difficult problem, but I don't agree. It seems as easy as pie to me!

2. be sick and tired of means "I hate" (also "can't stand")
Example: I'm sick and tired of doing nothing but work. Let's go out tonight and have fun

3. bend over backwards means "try very hard" (maybe too much!)
Example: He bent over backwards to please his new wife, but she never seemed satisfied.

4. bite off more than one can chew means "take responsibility for more than one can manage"
Example: John is so far behind in his studies. Besides classes, he plays sports and works at a part-time job. It seems he has bitten off more than he can chew.

5. broke means "to have no money"
Example: I have to borrow some money from my Dad. Right now, I'm broke.

6. change one's mind means "decide to do something different from what had been decided earlier"
Example: I was planning to work late tonight, but I changed my mind. I'll do extra work on the weekend instead.

7. Cut it out! means "stop doing something bad"
Example: That noise is really annoying. Cut it out!

8. drop someone a line means "send a letter or email to someone"
Example: It was good to meet you and I hope we can see each other again. Drop me a line when you have time.

9. figure something out means "come to understand a problem"
Example: I don't understand how to do this problem. Take a look at it. Maybe you can figure it out.

10. fill in for someone means "do their work while they are away"
Example: While I was away from the store, my brother filled in for me.

11. in ages means "for a very long time"
Example: Have you seen Joe recently? I haven't seen him in ages.

12. give someone a hand means "help"
Example: I want to move this desk to the next room. Can you give me a hand?

13. hit the hay means "go to bed" (also "hit the sack")
Example: It's after 12 o'clock. I think it's time to hit the hay.

14. in the black means "the business is making money, it is profitable"
Example: Our business is really improving. We've been in the black all year.

15. in the red means "the business is losing money, it is unprofitable"
Example: Business is really going poorly these days. We've been in the red for the past three months.

16. in the nick of time means "not too late, but very close!"
Example: I got to the drugstore just in the nick of time. It's a good thing, because I really need this medicine!

17. keep one's chin up means "remain brave and keep on trying"
Example: I know things have been difficult for you recently, but keep your chin up. It will get better soon

18. know something like the back of your hand means "know something very, very well" Example: If you get lost, just ask me for directions. I know this part of town like the back of my hand

19. once in a while means "sometimes, not very often"
Example: Have you been to the new movie theater? No, only see movies once in a while. I usually stay home and watch TV.

20. sharp means "exactly at a that time"
Example: I'll meet you at 9 o'clock sharp. If you're late, we'll be in trouble!

21. sleep on it means "think about something before making a decision"
Example: That sounds like a good deal, but I'd like to sleep on it before I give you my final decision.

22. take it easy means "relax"
Example: I don't have any special plans for the summer. I think I'll just take it easy.

23. to get the ball rolling means "start something, especially something big"
Example: We need to get this project started as soon as possible. I'm hoping you will help me get the ball rolling.

24. up to the minute means "the most recent information"
Example: I wish I knew more about what is happening in the capital city. We need more up to the minute news.

25. twenty-four/seven means "every minute of every day, all the time"
Example: You can access our web site 24/7. It's very convenient! 
 

A famous scientist was on his way to a lecture in yet another university when his chauffeur offered an idea. "Hey, boss, I've heard your speech so many times I bet I could deliver it and give you the night off." "Sounds great," the scientist said. When they got to the auditorium, the scientist put on the chauffeur's hat and settled into the back row. The chauffeur walked to the lectern and delivered the speech. Afterward he asked if there were any questions. "Yes," said one professor. Then he launched into a highly technical question. The chauffeur was panic stricken for a moment but quickly recovered. "That's an easy one," he replied. "In fact, it's so easy, I'm going to let my chauffeur answer it