The book-bag(Maugham)(3)

I was wandering about Malaya, staying here and there, a week or two if there was a rest-house or a hotel, and a day or so if I was obliged to inflict myself on a planter or a District Officer whose hospitality I had no wish to abuse; and at the moment I happed to be at Penang. It is a pleasant little town, with a hotel that has always seemed to me very agreeable, but the stranger finds little to do there and time hung a trifle heavily on my hands. One morning I received a letter from a man I knew only by name. This was Mark Featherstone. He was Acting Resident, in the absence on leave of the Resident, at a place called Tenggarah. There was a sultan there and it appeared that a water festival of some sort was to take place which Featherstone thought would interest me. He said that he would be glad if I would come and stay with him for a few days. I wired to tell him that I should be delighted and next day took the train to Tenggarah. Featherstone met me at the station. He was a man of about thirty-five, I should think, tall and handsome, with fine eyes and a strong, stern face. He had a wiry black moustache and bushy eyebrows. He looked more like a soldier than a government official. He was very smart in white ducks, with a white topee, and he wore his clothes with elegance. He was a little shy, which seemed odd in a strapping fellow of resolute mien, but I surmised that this was only because he was unused to the society of that strange fish, a writer, and I hoped in a little to put him at his ease.

1.      rest-house 旅舍

2.      inflict A on B  A打扰B

3.      trifle 琐事

4.      acting 代理的

5.      absence on leave 休假缺勤

6.      sultan 苏丹（穆斯林统治者的称号）

7.      wire 打电报

8.      stern 严厉的

9.      wiry 硬而结实

10.   bushy 浓密

11.   topee 遮阳帽

12.   strapping 魁梧

13.   mien 风度

14.   surmise 猜测

15.   society 交往

16.   strange fish 怪人

把b站当一个学习笔记持续更新，如有错误请不吝指正。