Jim worked in the office of a big company. He lived alone in a small comfortable apartment with two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. 吉姆在一家大公司的办公室工作。他独自住一套两屋、一厨、一卫的公寓。
At first he cleaned his apartment himself, but he soon found that he was not able to do housekeeping because he was often too busy. 起初他自己打扫住处，但很快发现因常常工作忙碌而没有时间做卫生。
So he hired an old lady called Mrs. Roper to do the cleaning for him. 因此他雇了一个叫做罗珀夫人的老太太给自己打扫房间。
Mrs. Roper accepted the employment with pleasure because she thought that was the right job for her. 罗珀夫人愉快的接受了这份工作，因为她认为这是适合自己的工作。
After she had been working for Jim for two weeks, Jim looked at the mirror in his bedroom and found that mirror was covered by a thick layer of dust.她工作两周后，吉姆在卧室照镜子时发现镜子上有厚厚的一层灰。
As a polite young man, he did not want to order Mrs. Roper around, so he wrote a message on the mirror with his finger "I'm coughing these days in this apartment because I have breathed in too much dust." 作为一个有礼貌的年轻人，他不想当面对她发号施令，因此用手指头在镜子上写了个留言：“这些天我一直咳嗽，因为吸入了太多灰尘。”
He came home late that evening. He went into his bedroom and looked at the mirror. "Mrs. Roper didn't seem to have cleaned the room." He said to himself. 当晚他很晚才回家，然后进卧室查看镜子。“看来罗珀夫人没有打扫过房间，”他心里说道，
But then he bent down and saw a bottle in front of the mirror. "I didn't put that bottle there," he thought. 但当弯下腰时他看到镜子前有个瓶子，“我没把瓶子放这儿，
"Mrs. Roper must have left it here. He picked the bottle up and looked at it carefully. ”他想，“准是罗珀夫人落下的瓶子。”他把它拾起来，又仔细看了看。
"She's written some message for me," he said to himself. It said, "This is the best medicine for your cough." “她给我留言了，”他心想。瓶子上写着：“这是治疗咳嗽最有效的药。”
