Mr. Popper’s Penguins（Ⅺ）波普先生的企鹅 （十一）

轮到最后一场演出的时候，波普先生弄错了场地，结果引发了一场混乱，他和企鹅们都被关进了警察局。从南极回来的杜雷克上将解救了他们。杜雷克上将提议将波普先生的这些企鹅带到北极，而一位电影公司的老板克雷恩也找到了波普先生，他愿意出一大笔钱来拍一部以这些企鹅为题材的电影。

“Better consider， Mr. Popper，” said the Admiral. “Ican’t offer you anything like that.”

“You say those men at the North Pole get lonelybecause there are no penguins？” asked Mr. Popper.“Very lonely，” said the Admiral.“But if there were penguins up there， mightn’t thepolar bears eat them？”

“Oh， 1）ordinary penguins， yes，” said the Admiral2）judiciously， “but not such highly-trained birds as yours，Mr. Popper. They could outwit any polar bear， I guess.”

It was now Mr. Klein’s turn to speak.

“In every moving picture house in America littlechildren would have the pleasure of seeing stories acted by the Popper Performing Penguins，” he said.

“Of course if we succeeded in establishing the breedat the North Pole，” said the Admiral， “the name mighthave to be changed a little. I imagine that hundreds ofyears from now scientists would be calling them thePopper Arctic Penguins.”

Mr. Popper was silent for a moment.

“Gentlemen，” he said， “I want to thank you both. I’llgive you my decision tomorrow.”

1） ordinary adj. 平常的

2） judiciously adv. 明断地

“你好好想想吧，波普先生，”上将说，“我没法给你那么好的东西。（剩余294字）