When Dave was eighteen, he bought a secondhand car for 200 so that he could travel to and from work more 1 than by bus. It worked quite well for a few years, but then it got so old, and it was costing him so much in repairs that he decided that he had better 2 it.
He asked among his friends to see if anyone was particularly anxious to buy a cheap car, but they all knew that it was falling to pieces, so 3 of them had any desire to buy it. Dave's friend Sam saw that he was 4 when they met one evening, and said, "What's up, Dave?"
Dave told him, and Sam answered, "Well, what about advertising it in the paper? You may 5 more for it that way than the cost of the advertisement!" Thinking that Sam's 6 was sensible (合理的), he put an advertisement in an evening paper, which read "For sale: small car, 7 very little petrol, only two owners. Bargain at 50."
For two days after the advertisement first appeared, there was no answer. But then on Saturday evening he had an enquiry (询问). A man rang up and said he would like to see him about the car. "All right," Dave said, feeling happy. He asked the man whether ten o'clock the next morning would be suitable or not. "Fine," the man said, "and I'll 8 my wife. We intend to go for a ride in it to test it."
The next morning, at a quarter to ten, Dave parked the car in the square outside his front door, 9 to wait there for the people who had answered his advertisement. Even Dave had to admit that the car really looked like a wreck (残骸). Then, soon after he had got the car as clean as it could be, a police car stopped just behind him and a policeman got out. He looked at Dave's car and then said, "Have you reported this 10 to us yet, sir?"
