Page 312 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIVITy 4.7
continued
who laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.
21 “No?”saidMrs.Sappleton,inavoicewhichonlyreplacedayawnatthelastmoment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention—but not to what Framton was saying.
22 “Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
23 Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended
to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
24 In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
25 Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.
26 “Hereweare,mydear,”saidthebearerofthewhitemackintosh,cominginthroughthe window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”
27 “A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
28 “Iexpectitwasthespaniel,”saidtheniececalmly;“hetoldmehehadahorrorofdogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
29 Romance at short notice was her speciality.
Second Read
• Reread the short story to answer these text-dependent questions.
• Write any additional questions you have about the text in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
3. Key Ideas and Details: Why is it significant that Framton Nuttel is described as undergoing a “nerve cure” in paragraph 2? Predict how this detail could be used for humorous effect.
4. Craft and Structure: What phrase in paragraph 3 helps you understand what “moping” means?
my Notes
Unit 4 • The Challenge of Comedy 285
laboured under: be misled by a mistaken belief
delusion: a persistent false belief
mackintosh: raincoat
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