Strona:Jerome K. Jerome - Trzej ludzie w jednej łodzi.djvu/70

do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to be the rule of this world. Each person has what he doesn‘t want, and other people have what he does want.
 Married men have wives, and don‘t seem to want them; and young single fellows cry out that they can‘t get them. Poor people who can hardly keep themselves have eight hearty children. Rich old couples, with no one to leave their money to, die childless.
 It does not do to dwell on these things; it makes one so sad.
 There was a boy at our school, we used to call him Sandford and Merton. His real name was Stivvings. He was the most extraordinary lad I ever came across. I believe he really liked study. He used to get into awful rows for sitting up in bed and reading Greek; and as for French irregular verbs there was simply no keeping him away from them.
 He was full of weird and unnatural notions about being a credit to his parents and an honour to the school; and he yearned to win prizes, and grow up and be a clever man, and had all those sorts of weakminded ideas. I never knew such a strange creature, yet harmless, mind you, as the babe unborn.
 Well, that boy used to get ill about twice a week, so that he couldn‘t go to school. There never was such a boy to get ill as that Sandford and Merton. If there was any known disease going within ten miles of him, he had it, and had it badly.