阅读理解 Passage Four I came across an old country guidebook the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village, and it was impressive to see the past variety of services which were available on one’s own doorstep in the late Victorian countryside. Nowadays a traveler in rural England might conclude that the only village tradesmen still flourishing were either selling frozen food to the villagers or selling antiques to visitors. Nevertheless, this would really be a false impression. On the surface, there has been a decline of village commerce, but its power is still remarkable. Our local grocer’s shop, for example, is actually expanding in spite of the competition from supermarkets in the nearest town. Women sensibly prefer to go there and exchange the local news while doing their shopping, instead of queuing up at a supermarket. And the grocer knows well that personal service has a considerable cash value. His prices may be a bit higher than those in the town, but he will deliver anything at any time. His assistants think nothing of bicycling down the village street in their lunch hour to take a piece of cheese to an old retired woman who sent her order by word of mouth with a friend who happened to be passing. The richer customers telephone their shopping lists and the goods are on their doorsteps within an hour. They have only to hint at a fancy for some commodity outside the usual stock and the grocer, a red faced-figure, instantly obtains it for them.