新概念三册23,24课的课文?

Lesson23 One man′s meat is another man′s poison
People become quite illogical when they try to decide what can be eaten and what cannot be eaten.If you lived in the Mediterranean,for instance,you would consider octopus a great delicacy.You would not be able to understand why some people find it repulsive.On the other hand,your stomach would turn at the idea of frying potatoes in animal fat-- the normally accepted practice in many northern countries.The sad truth is that most of us have been brought up to eat certain foods and we stick to them all our lives.
No creature has received more praise and abuse than the common garden snail.Cooked in wine,snails are a great luxury in various parts of the world.There are countless people who,ever since their early years,have learned to associate snails with food.My friend,Robert,lives in a country where snails are despised.As his flat is in a large town,he has no garden of his own.For years he has been asking me to collect snails from my garden and take them to him.The idea never appealed to me very much,but one day,after a heavy shower,I happened to be walking in my garden when I noticed a huge number of snails taking a stroll on some of my prize plants.Acting on a sudden impulse,I collected several dozen,put them in a paper bag,and took them to Robert.Robert was delighted to see me and equally pleased with my little gift.I left the bag in the
hall and Robert and I went into the living-room where we talked for a couple of hours.I had forgotten all about the snails when Robert suddenly said that I must stay to dinner.Snails would,of course,be the main dish.I did not fancy the idea and I reluctantly followed Robert out of the room.To our dismay,we saw that there were snails everywhere:they had escaped from the paper bag and had taken complete possession of the hall!I have never been able to look at a snail since then.Lesson24 A skeleton in the cupboardWe often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has been concealed from strangers for years.The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation.The terrible secret is called 'a skeleton in the cup board '.At some dramatic moment in the story the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined.The reader's hair stands on end when he reads in the final pages of the novel that the heroine,a dear old lady who had always been so kind to everybody,had,in her youth,poisoned every one of her five husbands.It is all very well for such things to occur in fiction.To varying degrees,we all have secrets which we do not want even our closest friends to learn,but few of us have skeletons in the cupboard.The only person I know who has a skeleton in the cupboard is George Carlton,and he is very proud of the fact.George studied medicine in his youth.Instead of becoming a doctor,however,he became a successful writer of detective stories.I once spent an uncomfortable week-end which I shall never forget at his house.George showed me to the guestroom which,he said,was rarely used.He told me to unpack my things and then come down to dinner.After I had stacked my shirts and underclothes in two empty drawers,I decided to hang in the cupboard one of the two suits I had brought with me.I opened the cupboard door and then stood in front of it petrified.A skeleton was dangling before my eyes.The sudden movement of the door made it sway slightly and it gave me the impression that it was about to leap out at me.Dropping my suit,I dashed downstairs to tell George.This was worse than 'a terrible secret'; this was a real skeleton !But George was unsympathetic.'Oh,that,' he said with a smile as if he were talking about an old friend.'That's Sebastian.You forget that I was a medical student once upon a time.'