I tried to make him see the fun of the thing, but he could not. George is very dense at seeing a joke sometimes.

Harris proposed that we should have scrambled eggs for breakfast. He said he would cook them. It seemed, from his account, that he was very good at doing scrambled eggs. He often did them at picnics and when out on yachts. He was quite famous for them. People who had once tasted his scrambled eggs, so we gathered from his conversation, never cared for any other food afterwards, but pined away and died when they could not get them.

It made our mouths water to hear him talk about the things, and we handed him out the stove and the frying-pan and all the eggs that had not smashed and gone over everything in the hamper, and begged him to begin.

He had some trouble in breaking the eggs (у него были некоторые хлопоты с разбиванием яиц) — or rather not so much trouble in breaking them exactly as in getting them into the frying-pan when broken (или, вернее, не столько трудности с их разбиванием, сколько с тем, чтобы вылить их разбитые на сковороду), and keeping them off his trousers (и не попасть ими на штаны: «удерживать их вне штанов»), and preventing them from running up his sleeve (и не допустить попадания на рукав); but he fixed some half-a-dozen into the pan at last (но он выпустил около полудюжины яиц на сковороду, наконец), and then squatted down by the side of the stove and chivied them about with a fork (а потом сел на корточки около спиртовки и раздавил их вилкой).

It seemed harassing work, so far as George and I could judge (это казалось изнурительной работой, насколько мы с Джорджем могли судить). Whenever he went near the pan he burned himself (всякий раз, когда он подходил к сковороде, он обжигался), and then he would drop everything and dance round the stove (и тогда он ронял все и танцевал вокруг спиртовки), flicking his fingers about and cursing the things (щелкая пальцами и проклиная яйца; to flick — хлестнуть, щелкнуть, стегнуть). Indeed, every time George and I looked round at him he was sure to be performing this feat (в самом деле, каждый раз, /когда/ мы с Джорджем оглядывались на него, он неизменно исполнял этот трюк). We thought at first that it was a necessary part of the culinary arrangements (мы подумали сначала, что это необходимая часть кулинарных приготовлений).

dance [d:ns] culinary ['klnr]

He had some trouble in breaking the eggs — or rather not so much trouble in breaking them exactly as in getting them into the frying-pan when broken, and keeping them off his trousers, and preventing them from running up his sleeve; but he fixed some half-a-dozen into the pan at last, and then squatted down by the side of the stove and chivied them about with a fork.

It seemed harassing work, so far as George and I could judge. Whenever he went near the pan he burned himself, and then he would drop everything and dance round the stove, flicking his fingers about and cursing the things. Indeed, every time George and I looked round at him he was sure to be performing this feat. We thought at first that it was a necessary part of the culinary arrangements.