My Life and Quest - Arthur Osborne #3

[Guest guest]

....Some time after I had left home and was living withy my husband in

Pakistan, I came back on a visit. I had bought some old coins in the

Peshawar and i showed them to him, explaining that I had been told

they were from the reign of some ancient king. He looked at them and

said that one of the coins was cetainly of a much later date than I

supposed.

 

" How do you know? " I asked him. " I didn't think you were interested

in old coins. "

" I'm not, " he told me, " but the date is written on the coin. "

" It is written in Arabic! " I exclaimed. " I didn't know you could read

Arabic. Why didn't you ever tell me? "

 

" Well, you never asked me, " was his reply. He had in fact learned the

language many years before but had not used it for a long time. In

all those years it had never occured to him to mention that he spoke

yet another language apart from Polish and French, and for all I know

several more that I hadn't asked him about!

as I said, he was not a man of many words, but those that he did

speak were worth listening to.

.........

to be continued

 

Foreword by Katya Douglas [Osborne]

My Life and Quest

Arthur Osborne