Dahl, Roald - Kiss Kiss - 01 - The Landlady英文小说文学作品English Fiction电子版下载.doc

The Landlady By Roald Dahl 1959 BILLY WEAVER had travelled down from London on the slow a.fternoon train,with a change at Reading on the way,and by the time he got to Bath it was about nine oclock in the evening and the moon was coming up out of a clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station entrance.But the air was deadly cold and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks. Excuse me,he said,but is there a fairly cheap hotel not too far away from here? Try The Bell and Dragon,the porter answered,pointing down the road.They might take you in.Its about a quarter of a mile along on the other side. Billy thanked him and picked up his suitcase and set out to walk the quarter-mile to The Bell and Dragon.He had never been to Bath before.He didnt know anyone who lived there.But Mr. Greenslade at the Head Office in London had told him it was a splendid town.Find your own lodgings,he had said,and then go along and report to the Branch Manager as soon as youve got yourself settled. Billy was seventeen years old.He was wearing a new navy-blue overcoat,a new brown trilby hat,and a new brown suit and he was feeling fine.He walked briskly down the street.He wastrying to do everything briskly these days.Briskness,he had decided,was the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen.The big shots up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time. They were amazing. There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along,only a line of tall houses on each side,all of them identical. They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors,and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences.But now,even in the darkness,he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows,and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect. Suddenly,in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a street-lamp not six yar