Общий курс английского языка. Часть 4 (В2 – С2). 16 201 английское слово. © Лингвистический Реаниматор - стр. 16

(с таким выражением лица, с которым) (родитель) (глядит на лицо) (умершего сына) (с таким выражением) (смотрел я на) (эту груду кондитерских изделий) (полагаю, в тот момент)(я был) (неблагодарным бродягой)(ибо) (я отказывался) (принять дар) (от щедрости) (дома) (в котором) (был устроен праздник) (накануне вечером)(очевидно) (гостям) (пирожные не понравились) (также) As one looks upon the face of his dead son, so looked I upon that multitudinous pastry. I suppose I was an ungrateful tramp, for I refused to partake of the bounteousness of the house that had had a party the night before. Evidently the guests hadn’t liked cakeeither .

(те пирожные) (символизировали) (крушение моих надежд) (хуже этого быть уже не могло) (тем не менее)(всему в жизни) (свойственно меняться) (изменилось и это)(уже в следующем) (доме) (меня пригласили) (посидеть) That cake marked the crisis in my fortunes. Than it nothing could be worse; therefore things must begin to mend. And they did. At the very next house I was given a «set-down.»

Jack London

Holding Her Down

Barring accidents, a good hobo, with youth and agility, can hold a train down despite all the efforts of the train-crew to «ditch» him – given, of course, night-time as an essential condition. When such a hobo, under such conditions, makes up his mind that he is going to hold her down, either he does hold her down, or chance trips him up.

There is no legitimate way, short of murder, whereby the train-crew can ditch him. That train-crews have not stopped short of murder is a current belief in the tramp world. Not having had that particular experience in my tramp days I cannot vouch for it personally.

But this I have heard of the «bad» roads. When a tramp has «gone underneath,» on the rods, and the train is in motion, there is apparently no way of dislodging him until the train stops. The tramp, snugly ensconced inside the truck, with the four wheels and all the framework around him, has the «cinch» on the crew – or so he thinks, until some day he rides the rods on a bad road.

A bad road is usually one on which a short time previously one or several trainmen have been killed by tramps. Heaven pity the tramp who is caught «underneath» on such a road – for caught he is, though the train be going sixty miles an hour.

The «shack» (brakeman) takes a coupling-pin and a length of bell-cord to the platform in front of the truck in which the tramp is riding. The shack fastens the coupling-pin to the bell-cord, drops the former down between the platforms, and pays out the latter. The coupling-pin strikes the ties between the rails, rebounds against the bottom of the car, and again strikes the ties.