Composition-Rhetoric Part 45

Suggested subjects:-- 1. The immigrant's error.

2. A critical moment.

3. An intelligent dog.

4. The lost key.

5. Catching a burglar.

6. A hard test.

7. Won by the last hit.

8. A story suggested by a picture you have seen.

(Name the incidents leading up to the climax. Is the mind held in suspense until the climax is reached? Are any unnecessary details introduced?)

+146. Conversation in Narration.+--When introduced into narration, a conversation is briefer than when actually spoken. It is necessary to have the conversation move quickly, for we read with less patience than we listen. The sentences must be for the most part short, and the changes from one speaker to another frequent, or the dialogue will have a "made to order" effect. Notice the conversation in as many different stories as possible. Observe how variation is secured in indicating the speaker. How many subst.i.tutes for "He said" can you name? In relating conversation orally, we are less likely to secure such variety. Notice in your own speech and that of others how often "I said" and "He said" occur.

EXERCISES

_A_. Notice the indentation and sentence length in the following selection:--

Louden looked up calmly at the big figure towering above him.

"It won't do, Judge," he said; that was all, but there was a significance in his manner and a certainty in his voice which caused the uplifted hand to drop limply.

"Have you any business to set foot upon my property?" he demanded.

"Yes," answered Joe. "That's why I came.

"What business have you got with me?"

"Enough to satisfy you, I think. But there's one thing I don't want to do"--Joe glanced at the open door--"and that is to talk about it here--for your own sake and because I think Miss Tabor should be present. I called to ask you to come to her house at eight o'clock to-night."

"You did!" Martin Pike spoke angrily, but not in the bull ba.s.s of yore.

"My accounts with her estate are closed," he said harshly. "If she wants anything let her come here."

Joe shook his head. "No. You must be there at eight o'clock."

--Booth Tarkington: _The Conquest of Canaan_ ("Harper's").

_B_. Notice the conversation in the following narrative. Consider also the incentive moment and the climax. Suggest improvements.

When Widow Perkins saw Widower Parsons coming down the road she looked as mad as a hornet and stepped to the back door.

"William Henry," she called to the lank youth chopping wood, "you've worked hard enough for one day. Come in and rest."

"Guess that's the first time you ever thought I needed a rest since I was born. I'll keep right on chopping till you get through acceptin' old Hull," he replied, whereupon the widow slammed the door and looked twice as mad as before.

"Mornin', widdy," remarked the widower, stalking into the room, taking a chair without an invitation, and hanging his hat on his knee. "Cold day,"

he added cheerfully.

The widow nodded shortly, at the same time inwardly prophesying a still colder day for him before he struck the weather again.

"Been buyin' a new cow," resumed the caller, impressively.

"Have, eh?" returned the widow, with a jerk, bringing out the ironing board and slamming it down on the table.

"An' two hogs," went on the widower, wis.h.i.+ng the widow would glance at him just once and see how affectionate he looked. "They'll make pork enough for all next winter and spring."

"Will, eh?" responded the widow, with a bang of the iron that nearly wrecked the table.

"An' a--a--lot o' odd things 'round the house; an' the fact is, widdy, you see--that is, you know--was going to say if you'll agree"--the widower lost his words, and in his desperation hung his hat on the other knee and hitched a trifle nearer the ironing board.

"No, Hull Parsons, I don't see a single mite, nor I don't know a particle, an' I ain't agreein' the least bit," snapped the widow, pounding the creases out of the tablecloth.

"But say, widdy, don't get riled so soon," again ventured Parsons. "I was jest goin' to tell you that I've been proposing to Carpenter Brown to build a new--"

By this time the widow was glancing at him in a way he wished she wouldn't.

"Is that all the proposin' you've done in the last five mouths, Hull Parsons?" she demanded stormily. "You ain't asked every old maid for miles around to marry you, have you, Hull Parsons? An' you didn't tell the last one you proposed to that if she didn't take you there would be only one more chance left--that old pepper-box of a Widow Perkins? You didn't say that, now, did you, Hull Parsons?" and the widow's eyes and voice snapped fire all at once.

The caller turned several different shades of red and realized that he had struck the biggest snag he'd ever struck in any courting career, past or present. He laughed violently for a second or two, tried to hang his hat on both knees at the same time, and finally sank his voice to a confidential undertone:--

"Now, widdy, that's the woman's way o' puttin' it. They've been jealous o'

you all 'long, fur they knew where my mind was sot. I wouldn't married one o' them women for nothing," added the widower, with another hitch toward the ironing board.

"Huh!" responded the widow, losing a trifle of her warlike cast of countenance. "S'pose all them women hadn't refused you, Hull Parsons, what then?"

"They didn't refuse me, widdy," returned the widower, trying to look sheepish, and dropping his voice an octave lower. "S'pose I hadn't oughter tell on 'em, but--er--can you keep a secret, widdy?"

"I ain't like the woman who can't," remarked the widow, shortly.

"Well, then, I was the one who did the refusin'--the hull gang went fer me right heavy, guess 'cause 'twas leap year, or they was tryin' on some o'

them new women's ways, or somethin' like that. But my mind was sot all along, d'ye see, widdy?"

And the Widow Perkins invited Widower Parsons to stay to dinner, because she thought she saw.

+Theme LXXVII.+--_Complete the story on pages 79-80, or one of the following:_--

THE AUDACIOUS REPORTER

Soon after Fenimore Dayton became a reporter his city editor sent him to interview James Mountain. That famous financier was then approaching the zenith of his power over Wall Street and Lombard Street. It had just been announced that he had "absorbed" the Great Eastern and Western Railway System--of course, by the methods which have made some men and some newspapers habitually speak of him as "the Royal Bandit." The city editor had two reasons for sending Dayton--first because he did not like him; second, because any other man on the staff would walk about for an hour and come back with the report that Mountain had refused to receive him, while Dayton would make an honest effort.

Seeing Dayton saunter down Na.s.sau Street--tall, slender, calm, and cheerful--you would never have thought that he was on his way to interview one of the worst-tempered men in New York, for a newspaper which that man peculiarly detested, and on a subject which he did not care to discuss with the public. Dayton turned in at the Equitable Building and went up to the floor occupied by Mountain, Ranger, & Blakehill. He nodded to the attendant at the door of Mountain's own suite of offices, strolled tranquilly down the aisle between the several rows of desks at which sat Mountain's personal clerks, and knocked at the gla.s.s door on which was printed "Mr. Mountain" in small gilt letters.