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LESSON SIX

Text: An Unfinished Story (from "A Writers's Notebook" by W. Somerset Maug­ham)

Grammar: Modal Verbs. Can, May, Must and their Equivalents.

AN UNFINISHED STORY

A week ago someone told me an incident. He said he wanted me to write a story on it, and since then I have been thinking it over. I don't see what to do. The incident is as follows.

Two young fellows were working on a tea plantation in the hills and they had to fetch the mail from a good way off so that they only got it at rather long intervals. One of the young fellows, let us call him Adams, used to get a lot of letters by every mail, ten or twelve and sometimes more, but the other, Brown, never got one. He used to watch Adams enviously as he took his packet and started to read, he was eager to have a letter, just one letter, and one day, when they were expecting the mail, an idea came into his head. He said to Adams: "Look here, you always have a packet of letters and I never get any. I'll give you five pounds if you let me have one of yours." "I don't mind," said Adams. So Adams agreed to sell one of his letters, and when the mail came in he at once handed Brown his letters and told him he could take any let­ter he liked. Brown gave him a five-pound note, looked over the letters, chose one and returned the rest. In the evening Adams joined Brown for a whisky and soda. For some time they were silent. Then Adams,eagerto find out about the letter, broke the silence, saying: "By the way,what was the letter about?" "I'm not going to tell you," said Brown. Adams was rather surprised and upset. He said: "Well, tell me at least, who it was from?" "That's my business," answered Brown. They had a bit of an argument, but Brown stood on his rights and refused to say any­thing about the letter that he had bought. Adams got angry, and as the weeks went by he did all he could to make Brown let him see the letter. Brown continued to refuse. At last Adams felt he could not stand it any longer and made up his mind to talk the matter over with Brown once again. One day he followed Brown into his office and said: "Look here, here's your five pounds, let me have my letter back again." "Never," said Brown. "I bought and paid for it, it's my letter and I mean to keep it."

That's all. I'm not a writer of the modern school and that is why, perhaps, I can't write it just as it is and leave it. It's against my princi­ples. I want a story to have form, and I don't see how I can give it that if you are unable to give the story the right kind of end.