新概念第三册背诵: Lesson 2 - Thirteen equals one

Keep going...
Lesson 2 - thirteen equals one
Was the vicar pleased that the clock struck? Why?

Our vicar is always raising money for one cause or another, but he has never managed to get enough money to have the church clock repaired. The big clock which used to strike the hours day and night was damaged many years ago and has been silent ever since.
    One night, however, our vicar woke up with a start: the clock was striking the hours! Looking at his watch, he saw that it (is) was one o'clock, but the bell struck thirteen times before it stopped. Armed with a torch, the vicar went up into the clock tower to see what was going on. In the torchlignt, he caught sight of a figure whom he immediately recognized as Bill Wilkins, (the) our local grocer.
    'Whatever are you doing up here Bill?'asked the vicar in surprice.
    'I'm tring to repair the bell,' answered Bill, 'I've been come up here night after night for weeks now, you see, I was hoping to give a surprice.'
    'You certainly did give me a surprice!' said the vicar, 'But you've probably woken up everyone in the village as well, still, I'm glad that the bell is working again.'
    'That's the trouble vicar,' answered Bill, 'The bell  it's working all right, but I'm afraid that at one o'clock it will strike thirteen times, and there's nothing I can do about it.'
    'We'll get used to that Bill', said the vicar, 'Thirteen is not as good as one, but it's better than nothing, now let's go downstairs and have a cup of tea.'

update: the highlighted words were missing or incorrect when my reciting, that's kind of a large number of! :(

Fortunately, I got a note of these text, that helps a lot!

Though it's a tough journey to recite, I'll go on with my mind.
I remember that there's a guy said that If you don't get something you want, it must be you're not really crazy for it, I'll get crazy for it, to get perfect English skill.
Yes, we can! :)