英譯中

　　Mother was an Oh. Her mother was the chemical engineer who first discovered a feasible way to store oxygen in tanks. And Father was Noel Ashenden, who though he did not actually invent the match-book, went into the field when it was still a not very flourishing novelty, and whose slogan, almost a poem, "Close Cover Before Striking"(a simple stroke, as Father liked to say), obvious only after someone else has already thought of it (the Patent Office refused to issue a patent on what it claimed was merely an instruction, but Father's company had the message on its matchbooks before his competitors even knew what was happening), removed the hazard from book matches and turned the industry and Father's firm particularly into a flaming success overnight—Father's joke, not mine. Later, when the inroads of Ronson and Zippo threatened the business, Father went into seclusion for six months and when he returned to us he had produced another slogan: "For Our Matchless Friends." It saved the industry a second time and was the second and last piece of work in Father's life.

　　家母隨外婆姓歐。外婆是化學(xué)工程師，成功開發(fā)了罐裝氧氣。家父是諾爾?艾興登。盡管紙板火柴不是他發(fā)明的，但當(dāng)它還是個(gè)新玩意兒、不怎么旺銷時(shí)，他就人了這個(gè)行業(yè)。他的推銷廣告頗有詩意：“闔蓋一劃火自來”(就像父親常說的，輕輕一劃就成)。很顯然，這是拾人牙慧(專利局因此拒發(fā)專利證，說這只不過是句使用說明。但父親的公司在對(duì)手還懵然不覺時(shí)，就搶先把這句廣告詞印在火柴盒上)。正是這句推銷廣告消除了紙板火柴使用時(shí)的危險(xiǎn)，使整個(gè)行業(yè)，特別是父親的火柴公司，一夜之間生意火了起來——這是父親的玩笑而非我本人的幽默。后來，榮升和芝寶打火機(jī)打人市場，火柴生意受到威脅。父親于是隱退，半年后推出了另一句廣告詞：“我友(有)火柴”，父親因此第二次拯救了火柴業(yè)，這也是父親一生中第二個(gè)也是最后一個(gè)成就。