I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe that if you took an average tow-line, and stretched it out straight across the middle of a field, and then turned your back on it for thirty seconds, that, when you looked round again, you would find that it had got itself altogether in a heap in the middle of the field, and had twisted itself up, and tied itself into knots, and lost its two ends, and become all loops; and it would take you a good half-hour, sitting down there on the grass and swearing all the while, to disentangle it again.
Io non intendo calunniare nessuno, ma credo fermamente che se si prende un cavo di media grandezza, e si tira ben dritto a traverso un campo, e poi gli si voltano le spalle per trenta secondi, si troverà, a guardarlo di nuovo, tutto in un mucchio in mezzo al campo, tutto attorto e legato in nodi, coi due capi perduti, e un’immensa confusione: ci vorrà una buona mezz’ora, e bisognerà sedersi sull’erba, per bestemmiare e distrigarlo.