[al:新概念英语（三）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:A Skeleton in the Cupboard] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.46]Lesson 24 [00:03.52]A skeleton in the cupboard [00:12.43]Who was Sebastian? [00:16.42]We often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has been concealed from strangers for years. [00:27.22]The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation. [00:33.57]The terrible secret is called 'a skeleton in the cupboard'. [00:38.64]At some dramatic moment in the story, the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined. [00:46.09]The reader's hair stands on end when he reads in the final pages of the novel that the heroine, a dear old lady who had always been so kind to everybody, had, in her youth, poisoned every one of her five husbands. [01:02.27]It is all very well for such things to occur in fiction. [01:06.16]To varying degrees, we all have secrets which we do not want even our closest friends to learn, [01:13.11]but few of us have skeletons in the cupboard. [01:16.79]The only person I know who has a skeleton in the cupboard is George Carlton, and he is very proud of the fact. [01:25.52]George studied medicine in his youth. [01:28.61]Instead of becoming a doctor, however, he became a successful writer of detective stories. [01:35.32]I once spent an uncomfortable weekend which I shall never forget at his house. [01:41.71]George showed me to the guestroom which, he said, was rarely used. [01:47.01]He told me to unpack my things and then come down to dinner. [01:51.70]After I had stacked my shirts and underclothes in two empty drawers, I decided to hang one of the two suits I had brought with me in the cupboard. [02:01.54]I opened the cupboard door and then stood in front of it petrified. [02:06.53]A skeleton was dangling before my eyes. [02:10.28]The sudden movement of the door made it sway slightly and it gave me the impression that it was about to leap out at me. [02:18.26]Dropping my suit, I dashed downstairs to tell George. [02:22.98]This was worse than 'a terrible secret'; this was a real skeleton! [02:28.89]But George was unsympathetic. [02:31.69]'Oh, that,' he said with a smile as if he were talking about an old friend. [02:37.05]'That's Sebastian. You forget that I was a medical student once upon a time.