Answer the following questions.

1. Give three examples each to illustrate how short sentences, elliptical sentences and dashes help to maintain the speed of the narration.

Answer: “She quivered with delight.” (short sentence)

“Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox.” (elliptical sentence)

“And-think of it-I was only eighteen.” (dash)

2. Did the narrator love Polly Espy? How did he try to “acquaint her with his feeling”?

Answer: The narrator claimed that he loved Polly, Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, the narrator now loved Polly as his creation. Now he was ready to propose for marriage.

3. How did Polly respond to the narrator's arguments for going steady with her? Why did she reject him? What does it show? As the story progresses, Polly turned out to be smarter than the narrator had previously thought. How does this contrast contribute to the humor of the piece?

Answer: The narrator taught Polly Espy how to recognize the common fallacies of logic. He succeeded too well because the whole thing backfired on him. Polly refuted all his arguments as logical fallacies and finally rejected him. In desperation the narrator argued that “the things you learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.” The appeal didn’t work for Polly because she didn’t reject him on logical grounds. She rejected him because he didn’t own a raccoon coat as Petey Burch did.