今週のラジオ英会話は、ずっとラジオ英語ドラマです。

オー・ヘンリーの警官と賛美歌　今日は第4幕です。

いつもiPhoneに入れて通勤時にきいているのですが、今週はあまりにもわからなくて
イヤホンを耳に刺しながら寝ていることが多いです。

こういうドラマがさっと聞けてわかるまで、何年かかるのでしょうね(^^;

生きているうちに可能なにかな？

The Cop and the Anthem　Act Four

　　In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar at a swinging light. His silk umbrella he had set by the door on entering. Soapy stepped inside, secured the umbrella and sauntered off with it slowly. The man at the cigar light followed hastily.

　　“My umbrella,” he said, sternly.

　　“Oh, is it?” sneered Soapy, adding insult to petit larceny. “Well, why don’t you call a policeman? I took it. Your umbrella! Why don’t you call a cop? There stands one on the corner.”

　　The umbrella owner slowed his steps. Soapy did likewise, with a presentiment that luck would again run against him. The policeman looked at the two curiously.

　　“Of course,” said the umbrella man―“that is―well, you know how these mistakes occur―I―if it’s your umbrella I hope you’ll excuse me―I picked it up this morning in a restaurant―If you recognise it as yours, why―I hope you’ll―”

　　“Of course it’s mine,” said Soapy, viciously.

　　The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman hurried to assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak across the street in front of a street car that was approaching two blocks away.

　　Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged by improvements. He hurled the umbrella wrathfully into an excavation.

　　At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the east where the glitter and turmoil was but faint. He set his face down this toward Madison Square, for the homing instinct survives even when the home is a park bench.

　　But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. For there drifted out to Soapy’s ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed against the convolutions of the iron fence.

　　The moon was above, lustrous and serene. And the anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days when his life contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts and collars.

　　And also in a moment his heart responded thrillingly to this novel mood. An instantaneous and strong impulse moved him to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself out of the mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To-morrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work. A fur importer had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow and ask for the position. He would be somebody in the world. He would―

　　Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around into the broad face of a policeman.

　　“What are you doin’ here?” asked the officer.

　　“Nothin’,” said Soapy.

　　“Then come along,” said the policeman.

　　“Three months on the Island,” said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.

Words & Expressions

□secure　確保する

□saunter　ぶらぶら散策するように歩く

□sternly　険しい表情で

□add insult to …　…に追い打ちをかける

□petit larceny　ごく小さな窃盗事件

□likewise　同様に

□presentiment　予感

□run against …　…の期待の逆を行く

□viciously　意地悪く

□improvements　開発事業

□wrathfully　怒り狂って

□excavation　掘削工事の穴

□at length　やがて、ついに

□turmoil　喧噪

□homing instinct　帰巣本能

□come to a standstill　立ち止まる

□quaint　風変わりな、古風な

□rambling　広大な

□gabled　破風造りの

□loiter　徘徊する

□anthem　賛美歌

□convolution　渦巻き

□lustrous　輝いて

□serene　静謐な

□cement　セメントでつなぐ

□desperate fate　絶望的な運命

□mire　ぬかるみ、苦境

□resurrect　よみがえらせる

□falter　ためらう

□roaring　活気に満ちた

□somebody in the world　ひとかどの人物

□the Police Court　警察裁判所