Funny professor

Mr Jones woke early one morning, before the sun had risen. It was a beautiful morning, so he went to the window and looked out. He was surprised to see a neatly dressed, middle-aged professor, who worked in the university just up the road from Mr Jones’s house, coming from the direction of the town. He had grey hair and thick glasses, and was carrying an umbrella, a morning newspaper and a bag. Mr Jones thought that he must have arrived by the night train and decided to walk to the university instead of taking a taxi.

Mr Jones had a big tree in his garden, and the children had tied a long rope to one of its branches, so that they could swing on it.

Mr Jones was surprised to see the professor stop when he saw the rope, and look carefully up and down the road. When he saw that there was nobody in sight, he stepped into the garden (there was no fence), put his umbrella, newspaper, bag and hat neatly on the grass and took hold of the rope. He pulled it hard to see whether it was strong enough to take his weight, then ran as fast as he could and swung into the air on the end of the rope, his grey hair blowing all around his face. Backwards and forwards he swung, occasionally taking a few more running steps on the grass when the rope began to swing too slowly for him.

At last the professor stopped, straightened his tie, combed his hair carefully, put on his hat, picked up his umbrella, newspaper and bag, and continued on his way to the university, looking as quiet and correct and respectable as one would expect a professor to be.

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