Para. 1-3

Charles Lamb, as merry and enterprising a fellow as you will meet in a month of Sundays, unfettered the informal essay with his memorable Old China and Dream's Children. There follows an informal essay that ventures even beyond Lamb's frontier. Indeed, “informal” may not be quite the right word to describe this essay; “limp” or “flaccid" or possibly “spongy” are perhaps more appropriate.

Vague though its category, it is without doubt an essay. It develops an argument; it cites instances; it reaches a conclusion. Could Carlyle do more? Could Ruskin?

Read, then, the following essay which undertakes to demonstrate that logic, far from being a dry, pedantic discipline, is a living, breathing thing, full of beauty, passion, and trauma.

—Author’s note

Q: What is the feature of this essay?

A: “limp” or “flaccid" or possibly “spongy” are more appropriate to describe this essay. Far from being a dry, pedantic discipline, it is a living, breathing thing, full of beauty, passion, and trauma.

Para. 4-5

Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute-I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemists scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And-think of it!-I was only eighteen.

It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it-this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.

Q1: How did the narrator describe himself?

A: He was cool, logical, keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute. His brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as a chemist’s scales, and as penetrating as a scalpel.

Q2: How did the narrator describe his roommate?

A: He was dumb as an ox. He was emotional, unstable, and impressionable. Worst of all, he was a faddist.

Para. 6-21

One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I’ll get a doctor.”

“Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.

“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.

“I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.

I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”

“I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”

“Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”

“All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”

“In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.

He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got to!”

“Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. They’re unsightly. They-”

“You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?”

“No,” I said truthfully.

“Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”

My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.

“Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.

Q1: Why did Petey want to get a raccoon coat?

A1: All the Big Men on Campus were wearing raccoon coats. It was very fashionable then and Petey was a person who was keen to following the trend. He was a faddist.

Q2: Why did the narrator say “My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. ‘Anything?’ I asked, looking at him narrowly”?

A2: The narrator was planning to get something that he really wanted from Petey.

Para. 22

I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.

Q1: What was the narrator planning to do?

A: He wanted to trade his father’s raccoon coat with Petey’s girlfriend.

Q2: Why does the narrator say “He didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it”?

A2: He didn’t really own Polly or Polly didn’t really belong to him. He mean that they were not married or going steady. But they were friends so Petey had the first claim or the privilege of “it”, showing the narrator’s attitude towards Polly.

Para. 23-27

I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.

I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.

Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt sure that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings.

Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding, At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house-a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut-without even getting her fingers moist.

Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.

Q1: What did the narrator mean by saying “Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature”?

A1: The narrator is honest about his feeling. He didn’t love Polly. He wanted to marry Polly because he thought she would help to further his career as a lawyer.

Q2: Polly was a girl who excited the emotions, but why did the narrator not let his heart rule his head?

A2: She was beautiful and attractive enough to arouse the desires and passions of men but the narrator didn’t pick her out for this. He chose her after coldly analyzing her merits and demerits, after concluding that she would be able to further his career.

Q3: What kind of girl was she?

A3: Polly was beautiful, gracious; only she was not intelligent. The narrator considered Polly “a beautiful dumb girl”, who would smarten up under his guidance to become a suitable wife for him.

Q4: Why was the narrator interested in Polly?

A4: According to the narrator, he was interested in Polly “for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason”. He wanted Polly to help further his career as a lawyer.

Para. 28-50

“Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”

“I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”

“Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?”

“No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”

“Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”

“I guess so. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out of the closet.

“Where are you going?” asked Petey.

“Home for the weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.

“Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”

“I may do better than that,” I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.

“Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.

“Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.

“Would you like it?” I asked.

“Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”

“Your girl,” I said, mincing no words.

“Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”

“That’s right.”

He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly.

I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.”

I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn’t turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.

Q1: “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old man, could you…” What did Petey express?

A1: The form of the question “you couldn’t…could you” is used here to express an eager request while uncertain of its acceptance.

Q2: What does the author mean “I may do better than that…”?

A2: He meant that he might do better than lending Petey some money to buy a raccoon coat. He could actually get Petey a raccoon coat.

Q3: What does the author mean “Then a canny look canny look came into his eyes”?

A3: It means that a cautious look came into his eyes. He suddenly became alert and cautious.

Q4: What is the topic sentence of Para. 50? How does the writer develop the idea expressed in the sentence?

A4: The topic sentence is: He was a torn man. The writer develops the paragraph by illustrative examples of the behavior of the torn man.