A man was looking for things of the old times. One day he came to a village and found a blue bowl which looked very _1_. The bowl was on the ground and a cat was drinking milk from it. A farmer, the _2_ of the cat, was lying_3_ the bowl. The man did not want the farmer to know that he was interested in the_4_. So he said to him, “What a nice cat you have! Will you _5_ it to me?”
The farmer asked, “_6_ will you give me for the cat?”
“Twenty dollars. Would that be enough?”
The farmer thought for a few minutes, then he _7_. After he paid the farmer, the man said, “My cat will certainly feel _8_. May I take the bowl _9_the cat can drink with it?” But the farmer said, “I’m _10_ I can’t give you the bowl. Thanks to the bowl, I have sold twenty cats already.”

A man was walking along the street when he saw a woman struggle（奋力）with a large box. It was half in and half  1  of her car. He was a helpful man, so he went up to the woman and said, “Let me give you a hand with that box. It looks very   2 . ” “That’s very kind of you,” the woman said. “I’m having a lot of  3  with it. I think it’s stuck（卡住）. ” “Together we’ll soon move it,” the man said. He  4_  into the back seat of the car and took hold of the other end of the box. He said, “I’m ready. ” And he began to_ 5  hard. For several minutes the man and the woman struggled with the box. Soon they were  6  in the face. “Let’s rest for a minute,” the man said. “I’m sorry, but it  7  stuck. ” A few minutes later, the man said, “Let’s try again. Are you ready?”  8  of them took hold of the box again. “One, two, three!” the man said, and they went on with their struggle.
At last, when they were very tired, the man said, “You are  9 . It really is stuck. I don’t think there’s any way we can get it out of the car. ” “Get it out of the car!” The woman cried. “I’m trying to get it  10 !”

A student was going to spend his holiday in a cool mountain village. That evening he stayed at an inn (小旅馆) near the railway station (火车站). Before going to bed, he went to the boss of the inn and said, "Excuse me, sir. Will you please wake me up at a quarter to five tomorrow morning? I’ll take the five o’clock train."
"Oh, sorry, sir," the boss said in a hurry, "I’m afraid I can’t. I won’t be able to get up so early."
The student was disappointed (失望). When he began to return to his room, be stopped and asked, "Have you got an alarm-clock (闹钟)? Maybe it can help me."
"Wait a minute, then." The boss said and brought out an alarm-clock. "Here you are, sir."
"Thank you very much." The student said happily. But he found it was rusty (锈的) when he had a look at it. And it sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. He asked, "Will it ring in time?"
"I don’t know, either." said the boss, "But it doesn’t matter. You just give it a good shake at a quarter to five. And it will ring on time."
【小题1】   The student stayed at the inn because ____.