Mr Pickwick got dressed, and put some clothes into his travelling bag. Ten minutes later he caught a cab to the coach yard at Golden Cross. That was where he had arranged to mee his three friends.
On the way there, he talked to the cab driver.
'How old is that horse, my friend?' Mr Pickwick asked.
'Forty-two,' the man replied.'
'What?' said Mr Pickwick in surprise. Some horses live to be twenty. A few reach thirty. But Mr Pickwick had never heard of a horse that was over forty years old before. He quickly pulled his notebook from his pocket.
'How long do you keep him working each trip?'
'Two or three weeks,' said the cab driver.
'Weeks!' repeated the astonished Mr Pickwick.
'Yes,' said the cab driver. 'We hardly ever take him home because of his weakness.'
'His weakness?'
'He always falls down when we take him out of the cab. But when he is in it, we tie him in very tight so he can't fall down. And as we have two nice big wheels on the cab, when he does move the wheels run after him and push him forward. He must go on; he can't help it.'
Mr Pickwick was astonished, but he thought it was very interesting, too. He carefully wrote down every word in his notebook.
More of this story in
The Pickwick Papers
by
Charles Dickens
Oxford Progressive English Readers
Grade 3
ISBN 0 19 586 308 9
This text is copyright Oxford University Press 1994.
If you can read this sample easily, you can enjoy any Oxford Progressive English Reader from Grade 1 through to Grade 3.