Mr. Hope is the janitor (看门人) of our school. He walks with a limp (跛行). Sometimes students make fun of him.
Watching him make his way slowly around our school, I often1why he limped.
One day as I walked past Mr. Hope with two boys, the two2him. The headmaster saw this and was very mad. I tried to3that I didn't do anything bad, but the headmaster took all of us to his office. He showed4a picture of a young man standing by a long, thin boat. "This is Mr. Hope when he was a young man," he said.
We were quite5to learn that our janitor was once a great rower (划船者) and that in the 1968 Olympics, Mr. Hope made it to the final. He was6and his only real competitor was one other racer.
The race7. These two boats were soon far ahead of the other boats. The race was going well when8, Mr. Hope heard a big noise. He turned around and saw that the other racer was sinking (下沉) fast. The man was in trouble9the boat had broken in the middle. He was stuck inside and he couldn't move.
The other10were a long way back. Mr. Hope was the only one who could do anything. Without11too much, he jumped into the water and pulled the man up. Finally, the man was12. However, some thin pieces of wood from the broken boat hurt Mr. Hope's13badly. And he has always limped since then.
As we stood there listening, the two boys felt sorry for14they had done. We all thought that Mr. Hope was a hero. His bravery and selfless (无私的) action set a good15for us to follow.
