I. How does the author characterize a modern disease the name of which is travel? Are you taken with a similar disease when your summer or winter vacations are coming?

II. What aim do you set yourself when you travel or go hiking?

III. What thoughts in the extract strike you as most humorous?

XIII

A. How does your housekeeper get on with your pupil?

B. Oh, she's jolly glad to get so much taken off her hands; for before the girl came, she used to have to find things and remind rne of my appointments. But she's got some silly bee in her bonnet about the girl. She keeps saying "You don't think, sir", doesn't she, Pick?

C. Yes, that's the formula "You don't think, sir". That's the end of every conversation about our pupil.

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В. As if I ever stop thinking about the girl and her confounded vowels and consonants. I'm worn out, thinking about her, and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue, not to mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.

A. You certainly are a pretty pair of babies playing with your live doll.

B. Playing! The hardest job I ever tackled: make no mistake about that, mother.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

I. What is the title of the play? What are the names of the characters who take part in the conversation?

II. Who is the girl they are talking about? What do you know about her?

III. What is the attitude of B. and C. towards the girl?

IV. Have you seen the screen version of the play? Did you like it? What title does it come under?

XIV

The sight of a tailor-shop gave me a sharp longing to throw off my rags, and clothe myself decently once more. Could I afford it? No; I had nothing in the world but a million pounds. So I forced myself to go on. But soon I was drifting back again. The temptation persecuted me cruelly. I must have passed the shop back and forth six times during that manful struggle. At last I gave in; I had to. 1 asked if they had a misfit suit that had been thrown on their hands. The fellow I spoke to nodded his head toward another fellow, and gave me no answer. I went to the indicated fellow, and he indicated another fellow with his head, and no words. I went to him, and he said: "'Tend to you presently."

I waited till he was done with what he was doing. Then he took me into a back room, looked through a pile of rejected suits, and selected the cheapest one for me. I put it on. It didn't fit, and wasn't in any way attractive, but it was new, and I was anxious to have it; so I didn't find any fault, but said shyly:

"Could you possibly wait a few days for the money? I haven't any small change about me."

The fellow looked at me sarcastically, and said:

"Oh, you haven't? Well, of course,.! didn't expect it. I'd expect gentleman like you to carry only large bills."

I was hurt and said:

"My friend, you shouldn't judge a stranger always by the clothes he wears. I am quite able to pay for this suit. I simply didn't wish to put you to the trouble of changing a large note."

He modified his style a little at that, and said:.

"I didn't mean any harm, but why did you jump to the conclusion that we couldn't change any note that you might happen to be .carrying around? On the contrary, we can."

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I handed the note to him,-and said:

"Oh, very well; 1 apologize."

He received it with a smile, one of those large smiles which goes all around over the face, and has folds in it, and wrinkles, and spirals, and looks like the place where you have thrown a brick in a pond; and then in the act of his taking a glimpse at the bill this smile froze solid, and turned yellow, and looked like those wavy spreads of lava which you find hardened on the side of the Vesuvius.

The man stood there holding the bill, and looking like that, and the proprietor hurried up to see what was the matter and said briskly:

"Well, what's up? What's the trouble? What's wrong?"

QUESTIONS AND EXERC/SES

I. What is the tille of the story the passage comes from?

II. How did the man come into possession of the banknote?

III. Write what you think happened when the proprietor of the tailor-shop saw the banknote.

IV. What proverbs do you know that might apply in this situation?

V. Pick out from the passage five active structural patterns. Make up several exercises to activate them. Act as teacher and have the exercises done in class.

XV

1) He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can see him. And if 1 catch his eye - and usually I catch his eye - it meets me with an expression -

It is mainly an imploring look - and yet with suspicion in it. Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at ease. Who would believe me if I did tell?

Poor old martyr! The fattest clubman in London. And why does he keep on eternally eating?

He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance furtively and catch him biting at the round of hot buttered tea-cake, with his eyes on me. Confound him! - with his eye on me.

That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you will behave as though I was not a man of honour, I'll write the whole thing down - the plain truth about Pyecraft. The man I helped, the man I shielded and who has made my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his eternal appeal, with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks.

Well, here's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

2) He did come back.. He does. There he sits behind me now stuffing hot buttered tea-cakes. And no one in the whole world knows - except his housekeeper and me - that he weighs practically nothing; that he is a mere boring mass of assimilatory matters, mere clouds in clothing, and most inconsiderate of men. There he sits watching

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until I have done this writing. Then, he will come billowing up to me...

He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it doesn't feel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. And always somewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, "The secret's keeping, eh? If anyone knew of it I should be so ashamed... Makes a fellow look such a fool, you know. Crawling about on a ceiling and all that..."

And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategic position between me and the door.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

I. What is the title of the story the passages come from?

II. How do the passages fit into the story?

III. What made the author change his attitude towards Pyecraft and write the whole truth about him?

IV. What sentence shows that the author was afraid of Pyecraft when he had finished writing the story?

V. What do you think is the most rational attitude towards one's weight and dieting?

XVI

Next afternoon young Swain was shown into the big living room. The old man looked at him appraisingly.

"Sir, I'm not an artist yet," answered the young man.

"Umph?" Swain arranged some paper and crayons on the table,

"Let's try and draw that vase over there on the mantelpiece," he suggested. "Try it, Mister Ellsworth, please."

"Umph!" The old man took a piece of crayon in a shaky hand and made a scrawl. He made another scrawl and connected the two with a couple of crude lines. "There it is, young man," he snapped a grunt of satisfaction. Frank Swain was patient. He needed the five dollars. Ran an elevator at night to pay tuition fees.

"If you want to draw you will have to look at what you're drawing, sir," he said calmly.

When the art student came the following week there was a drawing on the table that had a slight resemblance to the vase.

The wrinkles deepened at the corners of the old man's eyes and he asked, "Well, what do you think of it?"

"Not bad, sir," answered the patient student. "But it's a bit lopsided'."

"By gum," old Ellsworth chuckled. "I see.The halves don't match." He added a few lines with a palsied hand and colored the open spaces blue like, a child playing with a picture book.

When the late spring sun began to cloak the fields and gardens with color, the old man executed a god-awful smudge which he called "Trees Dressed in White". It resembled a gob of salad dressing thrown violently up against the side of a house! Then he made a startling

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announcement. He was going to exhibit it in the summer show at the Lathrop Gallery!

"We've got to stop him," said Mr. Ellsworth's old servant. "If the papers get hold of this, he will become a laughing-stock."

"No," admonished the doctor. "We can't interfere with him now and take a chance of spoiling all the good work that we've accomplished."

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

I. What story is the passage taken from?

II. Do you remember why the old man wa* persuaded to take up art?

III. Do you think he managed to get even with his doctor?

IV. Using the passage as a basis make up several exercises to activate the word combinations and structural patterns given below. Act as teacher and have the exercises done in class.

to suggest doing smth; to offer to do smth; to be able to do smth; to be capable of doing smth; to-persuade smb to do smth; to convince smb that; would rather; had better; to have smth done; to afford to do smth

XVII

"Would you like to go home?" I said to the kid.

"Aw, what for?" said he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again, will you?"

"Not right away," said I. "We'll stay here in the cave awhile."

"All right!" said he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life."

We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wide-blankets and quilts and put the kid between us. We weren't afraid he'd run away. But he kept us awake for three long hours. At last, 1 fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been.kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from my friend. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs - they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

I jumped up to see what the matter was, The kid. was sitting on Bill's chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill's, scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

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1 got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He again lay down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

I. What is-the title of the story the passage comes from?

II. How did the buy happen "to be wrth the men in the cave?

III. Did the men. manage to buy a tavern as they had planned?

IV. Have you seen the screen version of the story? Did you like it?

XVIII

"Well, Ma'am, I am happy to congratulate you."

"What upon?" said my aunt, sharply.

The doctor was fluttered again, by the extreme severity of my aurit's manner; so he-made her a little bow and gave her a little smile, to mollify her.

Well, Ma'am," resumed Mr. Chillip, as soon as he had courage, "I am happy to congratulate you. All is over, Ma'am, and well over."

How is she?" said my aunt, folding her arms with her bonnet Still tied on one of them.

"Well, Ma'am, she will soon be quite comfortable, I hope," returned Mr. Chillip. "Quite as comfortable as we can expect a young mother to be, under these melancholy domestic circumstances. There cannot be any objection to your seeing her presently, Ma'am. It' may do her good."

"And she. How is s/ie?" said my aunt, sharply.

Mr. Chillip laid his head a little more on one side, and looked at my - aunt like an amiable bird.

"Ma'am," returned Mr. Chillip, "I apprehended you had known. "It's a boy."

My aunt said never a word, but took her bonnet by the strings, in the manner of a sling, aimed a blow at Mr, Chillip's head with it,'put it on bent, walked out, and never came back. She vanished like a discontended fairy; or like one of those supernatural beings, whom it was popularly supposed I was entitled to see;' and never came back any more.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

I. Do you remember the title of the book the passage is. taken from?

II. Explain why the lady and the doctor misunderstood each other. Why did the lady leave so abruptly?

III. What else do you know about the lady?

IV. Consult die Concise Oxford' Dictionary and comment on the origin of the following -words:

extreme; to bow; severity; to mollify; melancholy; a head; to apprehend; to walk; to vanish; to return

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XIX

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

The New Year is a time for resolutions. Mentally, at least, most of us could compile formidable lists of "do's" and "don'ts". The same old favourites recur year in year out with monotonous regularity. We resolve to get up earlier each morning, eat less, find more time to play with children, do a thousand one jobs about the house, be nice to people you don't like, drive carefully, and take the dog for a walk every day. Past experience has taught us that certain accomplishments are beyond attainment. Most of us fail in our efforts at self-improvement because our schemes are too ambitious and we never have time to carry them out. We also make the fundamental error of announcing our resolutions to everybody so that we look even more foolish when we slip back into our old ways. Aware of these pitfalls, this year I attempted to keep my resolutions to myself. I limited myself to two modest ambitions: to do physical exercises every morning and to read more of an evening. An all-night party on New Year's Eve provided me with a good excuse for not carrying out either of these new resolutions on the first day of the year, but on the second, I applied myself assiduously to the task.

The daily exercises lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the morning before anyone had got up. The self-discipline required to drag myself out of bed eleven minutes earlier than usual was considerable. Nevertheless, I managed to creep down into the living-room for two days before anyone found me out. After jumping about on the carpet and twisting the human frame into uncomfortable positions, I sat down at the breakfast table in an exhausted condition. It was this that betrayed me. The next morning the whole family trooped in to watch the performance. That was really unsettling but I fended off the taunts and jibes of the family good-humouredly and soon everybody got used to the idea. However, my enthusiasm waned. The time I spent at exercises gradually diminished- Little by little the eleven minutes fell to zero. By January 10th, I was back to where I had started from. I argued that if I spent less time exhausting myself at exercises in the morning I would keep my mind fresh for reading when I got home from work. Resisting the hypnotizing effect of television, I sat in my room for a few evenings with my eyes glued to a book. One night, however, feeling cold and lonely, I went downstairs and sat in front of the television pretending to read. That proved to be my undoing, for I soon got back to my old habit of dozing off in front of the screen. I still haven't given up my resolution to do more reading. In fact, I have just bought a book entitled "How to Read a Thousand Words a Minute". Perhaps it will solve my problem, but I just haven't had time to read it!

(From "Developing Skills" by L. G. Alexander)

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QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES