The record-holder(L73)

Children who play truant from school are unimaginative. A quiet days fishing, or eight hours in a cinema seeing the same film over and over again, is usually as far as they get. They have all been put to shame by a boy who, while playing truant, travelled 1,600 miles. He hitchhiked to Dover and, towards evening, went into a boat to find somewhere to sleep.

逃学的小鬼通常都难以想象。安静地钓一天鱼、花八小时在影院一遍又一遍地看同一部电影，通常就是他们能做到的了。他们都被一个逃学的小鬼整出了阴影，这小鬼穿越了1600英里。他搭便车到多佛，傍晚时分，他上了一艘船，想找个地方睡觉。

When he woke up next morning, he discovered that the boat had, in the meantime, travelled to Calais. No one noticed the boy as he crept off. From there, he hitchhiked to Paris in a lorry. The driver gave him a few biscuits and a cup of coffee and left him just outside the city.

当他第二天醒来时，他发现这艘船已经去到了加莱。他逃跑时没人注意到他。在那里，他搭一辆卡车去了巴黎。司机给了他一些饼干和一杯咖啡，把他放在了城郊。

The next car the boy stopped did not take him into the centre of Paris as he hoped it would, but to Perpignan on the French-Spanish border. There he was picked up by a policeman and sent back to England by the local authorities. He has surely set up a record for the thousands of children who dream of evading school.

虽然他很希望，但他拦的下一辆车没有带他去到巴黎市中心，但带着他去了法国-西班牙交界的佩皮尼昂。在那里他被一个警察抓到，并经由当地部门送回了英格兰。他无疑为千万逃学少年创造了一个记录。