Dayton opened the door.  Mountain glanced up from a mass of papers before him.  His red forehead became a network of wrinkles and his scant white eyebrows bristled.  “And who are you?” he snarled.

“My name is Dayton—­Fenimore Dayton,” replied the reporter, with a gracefully polite bow.  “Mr. Mountain, I believe?”

It was impossible for Mr. Mountain altogether to resist the impulse to bow in return.  Dayton’s manner was compelling.

“And what the dev—­what can I do for you?”

“I’m a reporter from the ——­”

“What!” roared Mountain, leaping to his feet in a purple, swollen veined fury....

—­David Graham Philips ("McClure’s").

CAUGHT MASQUERADING

When I took my aunt and sister to the Pequot hotel, the night before the Yale-Harvard boat race, I found a gang of Harvard boys there.  They celebrated a good deal that night, in the usual Harvard way.

Some of the Harvard men had a room next to mine.  About three a.m. things quieted down.  When I woke up next morning, it was broad daylight, and I was utterly alone.  The race was to be at eleven o’clock.  I jumped out of bed and looked at my watch—­it was nearly ten!  I looked for my clothes.  My valise was gone!  I rang the bell, but in the excitement downstairs, I suppose, no one answered it.

What was I to do?  Those Harvard friends of mine thought it a good joke on me to steal my clothes and take themselves off to the race without waking me up.  I don’t know what I should have done in my anguish, when, thank goodness, I heard a tap at my door, and went to it.

“Well, do hurry!” (It was my sister’s voice.) “Aunt won’t go to the race; we’ll have to go without her.”

“They’ve stolen my clothes, Mollie—­those Harvard fellows.”

“Haven’t you anything?” she asked through the keyhole.

“Not a thing, dear.”

“Oh, well! it’s a just punishment to you after last night!  That ——­ noise was dreadful!”

“Perhaps it is,” I said, “but don’t preach now, sister dear—­get me something to put on.  I want to see the race.”

“I haven’t anything except some dresses and one of aunt’s.”

“Get me Aunt Sarah’s black silk,” I cried.  “I will wear anything rather than not see the race, and it’s half-past ten nearly now.”

(Correct your theme with reference to the points mentioned in Section 146.)

+147.  Number and Choice of Details—­Unity.+—­In relating experiences the choice of details will be determined by the purpose of the narrative and by the person or persons for whom we are writing.  A brief account of an accident for a newspaper will need to include only a clear and concise statement of a few important facts.  A traveling experience may be made interesting and vivid if we select several facts and treat each quite fully.  This is especially true if the experience took place in a country or