Owls, as Granddad Lynch says are not that what they seem.
We should admit the people with a newspaper do not either.
Have you ever been sitting on the terrace with a cup of fragrant coffee / a glass of aperitif wine / small liqueur glass of cognac together with a boy / girlfriend?
– Sure we have! – you would say.
And have you ever discussed in such surroundings any latest news /gossip, like: who had sent a bunch of forget-me- nots to Madame Madeleine; and who exactly had drunk that bottle of Bordeaux in one gulp; who had brought that very legendary eclair from the bakery, or
perhaps taken the sweetest French bulldog in?
– But of course! Why should you ask?
Things look black for you, that’s why.
Not so log ago there appeared in Paris a new mysterious lady-writer whose books immediately became bestsellers over France. People would read them, moan, weep, laugh, faint and then would recommend them to their friends.
The lady-writer’s name was... Madame Boniface.
– Оh! She’s swell! All our family have been reading it, and so have all our friends! As if she had been writing about us! Staggering! But... Why are the people with a newspaper?!
Now, let me tell you a real story, my dear Reader...
It happened some three weeks ago, it was in rainy November, the wind howled and it was almost snowing. I met my friend in a café, we sat at the table on the enclosed terrace, took hot mulled wine to get warm and two pieces of the most delicious chocolate cake.
We had not met for ages, so we’ve been chatting our heads off: my friend told how she had jumped on a trampoline for the first time, how she had been unravelling things in the attic and found her teddy hare George she had lost years ago and hadn’t been able to find. And the most shattering news was that in the end she had learned to manufacture skillfully origami from wonderful Japanese paper with intricate patterns.
I heeded her news, until I heard some odd noise coming from behind. I turned around and saw only a huge newspaper, over which a blue thread of cigarette smoke was rising. I shrugged my shoulders and kept listening to my friend’s incredible stories, then the same noises seemed to sound again; it looked like listening to a lecture and scribbling feverishly after the professor: you are not able to keep pace and your pen tears the paper, for you are terribly tensed, you try to catch every word, and the words try to scatter around.

Having turned abruptly, this time I managed to catch a glimpse of the face of the enigmatic man sitting on the terrace next to us: it was a grey-haired man with shifty eyes, wearing weird foreign-looking spectacles. On the table he had a note-book and a pen (besides the
newspaper and a cup of coffee that had already got cold); under the table a big and extremely pretty bulldog was dosing. My friend’s stories were more amusing than these funny sounds, so I decided not to be distracted. Hence when thunder clattered, the sounds were lost in the heavy splash of November shower.
 
After a couple of weeks when I had totally forgotten that weird man, a book in a bookshop caught my eye; the book had a strange title: ‘Secret Life of George the Rabbit and Other Amusing Stories’. I think now it’s cleat for you why people with a newspaper are not those
what they seem.
 
P.S. By the way, I’ve bought the book and it turned out to be more amusing than my friend’s stories!