阅读理解

　　A history teacher was talking to his class about the ancient Romans(古代罗马人)．“They were very strong, brave people, and they were good soldiers,”he said,“They always wanted to have strong bodies, so they played a lot of games．”

　　“Did they like swimming?”one of the girls asked．

　　“That makes people's bodies strong．”She was very good at swimming．

　　“Oh, yes, some of them swam a lot,”the teacher answered．Then he told them a story about one famous Roman．

　　“There was a big, wide river, and this man swam across it three times every day before breakfast．”

　　The girl laughed when she heard this．

　　“Why are you laughing?”the teacher asked her angrily．“Have I said anything funny(滑稽可笑)?”

　　“Well, sir,”the girl answered,“Why didn't be swim across the river four times to get back his clothes again?”

　　You may never heard of Ladislao Biro, but you have certainly heard of the pen he invented－the ballpoint pen(圆珠笔), or biro．Before Biro invented his pen, people wrote with fountain pens(钢笔)．The ink sometimes went out．In the 1930s, Biro was a magazine editor in Budapest in Hungary．He noticed that the inks which the magaxine's printers used dried very quickly．Biro wondered if quick－drying inks could be used in pens．He came up with the idea of a tube(管子)of ink with a free－moving ball on the end．As a person wrote, the ball collected ink from the tube and rolled(滚动)it on to the paper．The pen would be cheap and could be thrown away when the ink was used up．

　　Biro began to work on his invention but he soon left Europe for Buenos Aires in Argentina, a country in South America, because of the Second World War．Biro and his brother George, who was a chemist, began to improve the pen．In the early 1940s, Biro began to produce his new pen, the biro．In 1944, he sold his invention to another company, which began to produce the pen for Britain and America．

　　Biro was pleased that his pen was popular, but he did not get much from his invention．The bieo was later sold to the French company, Bic, which now sells twelve million pens a day．Biro sank into obscurity in South America．His name, however, has become famous around the world．