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It was the son of Colonel Folque. The latter paled, but did not flinch.

His son did not come back.—Boston Herald.

II

Villagers in fear of death were scuttling out of little homes like rats driven from holes by flood.

One person in the village remained at her accustomed post and from time to time recorded into the mouth of a telephone receiver the progress of the conflict, while a French general at the other end of the wire listened. Presently her communications were interrupted. “A bomb has just fallen in this office,” the girl called to the general. Then conversation ceased.

It is always that way with the telephone girl when tragedy stalks abroad and there is necessity to maintain communication with the outside world. The telephone girl of Etain may be lionized in lyric literature. She deserves it. The telephone girl of Etain may find brief mention in history. She deserves that much at least. And yet the telephone girl at  Etain is but one of her kind the world over.—Sioux City Journal.

III. Oral Composition Point out in each story the situation, the climax, and the dénouement. Discuss the meaning of “polytechnic,” “lionized,” “lyric.” Discuss the etymology of “volunteers,” “mission,” “graduate,” “telephone,” “literature.” Describe Etain. Find in the models examples of antithesis, alliteration, and simile. IV. Written Composition Do not exceed the length of the models. Be sure that your story is in three paragraphs, arranged thus: (1) Situation; (2) Climax; (3) Dénouement. Put your story in the form of a news article with a heading. Don’t forget the “Four W’s.” V. Model

New York, November 21. The mystery of the disappearance of Mrs. Pauline Edwards on November 18 was cleared up to-day. A party of police visited her home at 96 East Twenty-third St. at 9 A.M. for the purpose of making a final examination of the premises. They found Mr. Allan Edwards, her husband, at home, and compelled him to accompany them on their tour of inspection. Careful scrutiny of all the rooms having failed to reveal any evidence of foul play, they were about to leave the cellar, which they had visited last, when Edwards, who was apparently under the influence of liquor or strong excitement, called their attention in abusive language to the construction of the walls, at the same time rapping heavily with a cane upon the bricks of the foundation of a chimney. His blows were answered by a sound from within the chimney. It seemed at first like the sobbing of a child and then swelled into an indescribable scream, howl, or shriek. The wall was broken down, revealing  the bloody corpse of Mrs. Edwards. It stood erect. On its head sat a black cat.

On being arraigned before Police Justice O’Toole, Edwards confessed his guilt and told the story of his life. He comes from an excellent family, is a graduate of the University of Utopia, and had a thriving business until, several years ago, he became addicted to drink. During the summer of 1913, in a drunken frenzy, he gouged out one eye of a cat named Pluto, who had formerly been one of his pets. More recently he had destroyed this animal by hanging it with a clothes line in his yard. Remorse for this cruel deed caused him about two months ago to domesticate another cat, which was exactly like the first except that, whereas the first was entirely black, the second had on its breast a white spot, shaped like a gallows.

This circumstance, the fact that the animal had only one eye, and his own nervous condition soon made Edwards loathe and fear the new cat. On the morning of November 17, he and Mrs. Edwards went to the cellar to inspect their supply of coal. The cat followed them down the steep stairs and nearly overthrew Edwards, who thereupon seized an axe and would have slain it, had not Mrs. Edwards interposed. In his fury at being thwarted, he buried the axe in her skull. As the cellar had been newly plastered, he had no difficulty in removing some bricks from the chimney, in concealing the remains in its interior, and in repairing the wall in such a way that it did not differ in appearance from the rest of the cellar.

Dr. Felix Leo, Professor of Zoölogy at Columbia, on having these facts told him this morning, said he thought it unlikely that Cat Number Two was the same individual as Cat Number One, though the story of Androcles and the lion, if true, would indicate that animals of the feline species sometimes remember and reciprocate a kindness. “Why, then,” said the doctor, solemnly closing one eye, “may we not suppose that a cat would have the will and the intelligence to revenge an injury?”

The theory of Edwards, who is now confined in a padded cell in the Tombs, is different. He maintains that the two cats are one and the same, and that the body of the beast is occupied by that ubiquitous spirit who is variously known as Satan, Hornie, Cloots, Mephistopheles, Pluto, and Old Nick.

 VI. Analysis of Model

This story is simply a translation into newspaper English of Edgar Allen Poe’s story entitled The Black Cat. Its three parts are as follows:

Situation. A man is converted by drink into such a beast that he first tortures and kills a pet and afterwards in his frenzy murders his wife, concealing her body in a chimney. Climax. His crime is revealed by the wail of the cat, which he had supposed dead but had walled up with the corpse. Dénouement. He is to be executed.

Poe puts the dénouement first, the situation second, and the climax last, which is a common and effective method in tales of horror and mystery. The newspaper method is to put the climax first, the dénouement second, and the situation last. This arrangement, which is as old as Homer’s Odyssey, is thus alluded to by Byron:

“Most epic poets plunge in medias res,
(Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),
And then your hero tells, whene’er you please,
What went before—by way of episode.”

For newspaper purposes this method is desirable because it makes a good lead. That is, the first paragraph, and if possible the first sentence, tells the biggest fact about the case. Readers’ attention being thus caught and economized, they get the habit of buying papers.

VII. Assignments Write headlines for the models in this chapter. Rewrite the Models in Section II on the plan of that in Section V. Rewrite on the same plan one of Poe’s other detective stories, one of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Wrecker, one of Cooper’s novels, or any other thrilling story.  VIII. Cautions Be sure that you have your three situations in the right order. Be exceedingly particular about the Four W’s. Make them stand out vividly in each situation. Use the shortest words that will convey your meaning. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly. How many does the model contain? IX. Suggested Reading

Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island; Robert Browning’s Hervé Riel; Tennyson’s Revenge; Whittier’s Barbara Frietchie; Samuel Rogers’s Ginevra.

X. Memorize
THE WAR-SONG OF DINAS VAWR
The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.
On Dyfed’s richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them, and o’erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us,
But we conquered them, and slew them.
As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
  He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.
We there, in strife bewildering,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.
We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle,
And the head of him who owned them:
Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.

Thomas Love Peacock.
←Contents

 CHAPTER IX
BOOK REVIEWS

“A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit.”

John Milton.

I. Assignments Write a review of a book of travels. Write a review of a biography. Write a review of a novel. II. Models
I

Fraser, John Foster. The Amazing Argentine. Pp. 291, illustrated. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. $1.50 net.

This volume should go far to dissipate any idea that there is not much of any consequence south of the Rio Grande besides the Panama Canal. In the story of his journeyings over the length and breadth of this enormous country—twice the size of Mexico—Mr. Fraser paints us a picture of a progressive people, and a country that is rapidly assuming a position as the foremost producer of the world’s meat-supply. Stretching from the Atlantic to the Andes Mountains and from north of the Tropic of Capricorn to the Straits of Magellan, it supports 30,000,000 cattle, over 80,000,000 sheep, and 8,000,000 horses. The railroads, in which the British have invested £300,000,000, are among the best equipped in the world, and carry annually 40,000,000 tons of freight, with approximate receipts of £25,000,000. The export trade is advancing by leaps and bounds, and in 1912 the value of wool exports was £50,000,000, live-stock products £35,000,000, and agricultural produce £53,000,000; while the extent of the frozen-meat business may be gaged from the fact that £11,000,000 is invested in freezing-houses.  The book is a distinct help to Americans in showing them a little more of the great country that is opening up to their enterprise.—The Literary Digest, October 17, 1914.2

II

Le Sueur Gordon. Cecil Rhodes. 8vo, pp. 345. New York: McBride, Nast & Co. $3.50.

Cecil Rhodes must be looked upon as the Clive of South Africa. He found that country a land of wilderness and savagery. He transformed it into a fair and industrious province. He possessed the unscrupulous and relentless spirit of such conquerors as Julius Cæsar, and he was at the same time a financier of the widest resource. But some nefarious or alleged nefarious transactions which stained his name as a business man and a politician deprived him of royal recognition. He was not only denied a title, but even failed to obtain a decoration, and it was not until his death that a magnificent monument was unveiled to his memory in the heart of Rhodesia, a province which he had created and which was named after him.

Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902) was born, like so many eminent Englishmen, in the house of a clergyman. Into the forty-nine years of his life he compressed a very stirring chapter of British victory. There was something of the buccaneer in his character when he prompted the notorious Jameson Raid and eventually brought the British Government into conflict with the cunning and ambition of Kruger—Oom Paul, as he was styled. For the bitter and bloody Boer War

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