PSAT Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test - Reading - PSAT-Reading Exam Questions

QUESTION NO: 1
He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but
where IS your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and
what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took
stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. The kindest little man as never growed!
Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby though he knowed himself to be a nat'ral
Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You
never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He DID allow himself to break out into strong language
respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the 'art; and when a man's 'art has been
trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain't master of his actions.
He was always in love, of course; every human nat'ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a
large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep 'em the
Curiosities they are.
One sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn't have been
there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything.
He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a
writing master HE was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore he'd
have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind,
because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house,
I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a
diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public
believed to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney sarser in which he
made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: "Ladies
and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain."
When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they
was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed.
He had what I consider a fine mind--a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him
so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run
through him a little time, he would screech out, "Toby, I feel my property coming--grind away! I'm counting
my guineas by thousands, Toby--grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in
me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England!" Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind.
Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.
He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing you may notice in many
phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that it
kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, "Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of
my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don't signify to a low beast of a
Indian; he an't formed for Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; HE an't formed for Society. I am."
Which selection best interprets "Chops would have starved to death, afore he'd have gained a bit of bread
by putting his hand to a paper" 4th paragraph

QUESTION NO: 2
Mathew ascended three flights of stairs--passed half-way down a long arched gallery--and knocked at
another old-fashioned oak door. This time the signal was answered. A low, clear, sweet voice, inside the
room, inquired who was waiting without? In a few hasty words Mathew told his errand. Before he had
done speaking the door was quietly and quickly opened, and Sarah Leeson confronted him on the
threshold, with her candle in her hand.
Not tall, not handsome, not in her first youth--shy and irresolute in manner--simple in dress to the utmost
limits of plainness--the lady's-maid, in spite of all these disadvantages, was a woman whom it was
impossible to look at without a feeling of curiosity, if not of interest. Few men, at first sight of her, could
have resisted the desire to find out who she was; few would have been satisfied with receiving for answer,
She is Mrs. Treverton's maid; few would have refrained from the attempt to extract some secret
information for themselves from her face and manner; and none, not even the most patient and practiced
of observers, could have succeeded in discovering more than that she must have passed through the
ordeal of some great suffering at some former period of her life. Much in her manner, and more in her face,
said plainly and sadly: I am the wreck of something that you might once have liked to see; a wreck that
can never be repaired--that must drift on through life unnoticed, unguided, unpitied--drift till the fatal shore
is touched, and the waves of Time have swallowed up these broken relics of me forever.
This was the story that was told in Sarah Leeson's face--this, and no more. No two men interpreting that
story for themselves, would probably have agreed on the nature of the suffering which this woman had
undergone. It was hard to say, at the outset, whether the past pain that had set its ineffaceable mark on
her had been pain of the body or pain of the mind. But whatever the nature of the affliction she had
suffered, the traces it had left were deeply and strikingly visible in every part of her face.
Her cheeks had lost their roundness and their natural color; her lips, singularly flexible in movement and
delicate in form, had faded to an unhealthy paleness; her eyes, large and black and overshadowed by
unusually thick lashes, had contracted an anxious startled look, which never left them and which piteously
expressed the painful acuteness of her sensibility, the inherent timidity of her disposition. So far, the
marks which sorrow or sickness had set on her were the marks common to most victims of mental or
physical suffering. The one extraordinary personal deterioration which she had undergone consisted in
the unnatural change that had passed over the color of her hair.
It was as thick and soft, it grew as gracefully, as the hair of a young girl; but it was as gray as the hair of an
old woman. It seemed to contradict, in the most startling manner, every personal assertion of youth that
still existed in her face. With all its haggardness and paleness, no one could have looked at it and
supposed for a moment that it was the face of an elderly woman. Wan as they might be, there was not a
wrinkle in her cheeks. Her eyes, viewed apart from their prevailing expression of uneasiness and timidity,
still preserved that bright, clear moisture which is never seen in the eyes of the old. The skin about her
temples was as delicately smooth as the skin of a child. These and other physical signs which never
mislead, showed that she was still, as to years, in the very prime of her life.
Sickly and sorrow-stricken as she was, she looked, from the eyes downward, a woman who had barely
reached thirty years of age. From the eyes upward, the effect of her abundant gray hair, seen in
connection with her face, was not simply incongruous--it was absolutely startling; so startling as to make it
no paradox to say that she would have looked most natural, most like herself if her hair had been dyed. In
her case, Art would have seemed to be the truth, because Nature looked like falsehood. What shock had
stricken her hair, in the very maturity of its luxuriance, with the hue of an unnatural old age? Was it a
serious illness, or a dreadful grief that had turned her gray in the prime of her womanhood? That question
had often been agitated among her fellow-servants, who were all struck by the peculiarities of her
personal appearance, and rendered a little suspicious of her, as well, by an inveterate habit that she had
of talking to herself. Inquire as they might, however, their curiosity was always baffled. Nothing more
could be discovered than that Sarah Leeson was, in the common phrase, touchy on the subject of her
gray hair and her habit of talking to herself, and that Sarah Leeson's mistress had long since forbidden
every one, from her husband downward, to ruffle her maid's tranquility by inquisitive questions.
What can the reader infer about the setting from the limited information in paragraph one?

QUESTION NO: 3
The storyteller's __________ anecdotes earned her the __________ attention of the crowd.

QUESTION NO: 4
Pauline Johnson (18611913) was the daughter of Mohawk leader George Henry Martin; her mother was
English. Johnson was known in her time as a poet and performer. For years she toured throughout
Canada giving dramatic readings. Late in her life she turned to writing short stories. This excerpt is from
"A Red Girl's Reasoning," first published in 1893.
How interesting--do tell us some more of your old home, Mrs. McDonald; you so seldom speak of your life
at the post, and we fellows so often wish to hear of it all," said Logan eagerly. "Why do you not ask me of it,
then?" "Well--er, I'm sure I don't know; I'm fully interested in the Ind --in your people--your mother's people,
I mean, but it always seems so personal, I suppose; and --a --a--" "Perhaps you are, like all other white
people, afraid to mention my nationality to me."
The captain winced, and Mrs. Stuart laughed uneasily. Joe McDonald was not far off, and he was listening,
and chuckling, and saying to himself, "That's you, Christie, lay `em out; it won't hurt `em to know how they
appear once in a while." "Well, Captain Logan," she was saying, "what is it you would like to hear--of my
people, or my parents, or myself?" "All, all, my dear," cried Mrs. Stuart clamorously. "I'll speak for him--tell
us of yourself and your mother--your father is delightful, I am sure--but then he is only an ordinary
Englishman, not half so interesting as a foreigner, or--or perhaps I should say, a native."
Christie laughed. "Yes," she said, "my father often teases my mother now about how very native she was
when he married her; then, how could she have been otherwise? She did not know a word of English, and
there was not another English-speaking person besides my father and his two companions within sixty
miles." "Two companions, eh? One a Catholic priest and the other a wine merchant, I suppose, and with
your father in the Hudson Bay, they were good representatives of the pioneers in the New World,"
remarked Logan waggishly.
"Oh, no, they were all Hudson Bay men. There were no rumsellers and no missionaries in that part of the
country then." Mrs. Stuart looked puzzled. "No missionaries?" she repeated with an odd intonation.
Christie's insight was quick. There was a peculiar expression of interrogation in the eyes of her listeners,
and the girl's blood leapt angrily up into her temples as she said hurriedly, "I know what you mean; I know
what you are thinking. You are wondering how my parents were married --"
"Well--er, my dear, it seems peculiar if there was no priest, and no magistrate, why--a--" Mrs. Stuart
paused awkwardly.
"The marriage was performed by Indian rites," said Christie. "Oh, do tell about it; is the ceremony very
interesting and quaint--are your chieftains anything like Buddhist priests?" It was Logan who spoke.
"Why, no," said the girl in amazement at that gentleman's ignorance. "There is no ceremony at all, save a
feast. The two people just agree to live only with and for each other, and the man takes his wife to his
home, just as you do. There is no ritual to bind them; they need none; an Indian's word was his law
inthose days, you know."
Mrs. Stuart stepped backwards. "Ah!" was all she said. Logan removed his eyeglass and stared blankly at
Christie. "And did McDonald marry you in this singular fashion?" he questioned. "Oh, no, we were married
by Father O'Leary. Why do you ask?" "Because if he had, I'd have blown his brains out tomorrow." Mrs.
Stuart's partner, who had heretofore been silent, coughed and began to twirl his cuff stud nervously, but
nobody took notice of him. Christie had risen, slowly, ominously--risen, with the dignity and pride of an
empress.
"Captain Logan," she said, "what do you dare to say to me? What do you dare to mean? Do you presume
to think it would not have been lawful for Joe to marry me according to my people's rites? Do you for one
instant dare to question that my parents were not as legally--"
"Don't, dear, don't," interrupted Mrs. Stuart hurriedly, "it is bad enough now, goodness knows; don't
make--" Then she broke off blindly.
Mrs. Stuart's "odd intonation" apparently results from

QUESTION NO: 5
Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and with great suspense one awaited the
hour, when according to mask-law, each masked guest must make himself known. This moment came,
but although all other unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his features to be seen, till at last
the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at the obstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier. He
opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But from the crowded spectators, two
officials advanced, who recognized the black dancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they
said who the supposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing with rage, the King
commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death, who had ventured to dance, with the queen; so
disgraced the Empress, and insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, and said:
"Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here, but most heavily against you my
sovereign and my queen. The Queen is insulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment
even blood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have suffered by me. Therefore oh King!
allow me to propose a remedy, to efface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword and
knight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares to speak disrespectfully of my king."
All of the following would qualify to support the secret knight being labeled a "criminal" 1st paragraph
EXCEPT:

QUESTION NO: 6
The idea of "children's literature" __ in the late eighteenth century, when educators first decided that
children needed special __ of their own.

QUESTION NO: 7
The many obvious lapses in the author's research make it __ to accept the __ of his conclusions.

QUESTION NO: 8
The outcome of the race seemed __________ before the leader's misstep on the final leg gave her
competitors a(n) __________ of winning the title.

QUESTION NO: 9
The following two passages deal with the political movements working for the woman's vote in America.
Passage 1
The first organized assertion of woman's rights in the United States was made at the Seneca Falls
convention in 1848. The convention, though, had little immediate impact because of the national issues
that would soon embroil the country. The contentious debates involving slavery and state's rights that
preceded the Civil War soon took center stage in national debates.
Thus woman's rights issues would have to wait until the war and its antecedent problems had been
addressed before they would be addressed. In 1869, two organizations were formed that would play
important roles in securing the woman's right to vote. The first was the American Woman's Suffrage
Association (AWSA). Leaving federal and constitutional issues aside, the AWSA focused their attention
on state-level politics. They also restricted their ambitions to securing the woman's vote and downplayed
discussion of women's full equality. Taking a different track, the National Woman's Suffrage Association
(NWSA), led by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, believed that the only way to assure the
long-term security of the woman's vote was to ground it in the constitution. The NWSA challenged the
exclusion of woman from the Fifteenth Amendment, the amendment that extended the vote to
African-American men. Furthermore, the NWSA linked the fight for suffrage with other inequalities faced
by woman, such as marriage laws, which greatly disadvantaged women.
By the late 1880s the differences that separated the two organizations had receded in importance as the
women's movement had become a substantial and broad-based political force in the country. In 1890, the
two organizations joined forces under the title of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). The NAWSA would go on to play a vital role in the further fight to achieve the woman's vote.
Passage 2
In 1920, when Tennessee became the thirty-eighth state to approve the constitutional amendment
securing the woman's right to vote, woman's suffrage became enshrined in the constitution. But woman's
suffrage did not happen in one fell swoop. The success of the woman's suffrage movement was the story
of a number of partial victories that led to the explicit endorsement of the woman's right to vote in the
constitution.
As early as the 1870s and 1880s, women had begun to win the right to vote in local affairs such as
municipal elections, school board elections, or prohibition measures. These "partial suffrages"
demonstrated that women could in fact responsibly and reasonably participate in a representative
democracy (at least as voters). Once such successes were achieved and maintained over a period of
time, restricting the full voting rights of woman became more and more suspect. If women were helping
decide who was on the local school board, why should they not also have a voice in deciding who was
president of the country? Such questions became more difficult for non-suffragists to answer, and thus the
logic of restricting the woman's vote began to crumble
The author of the second passage would most likely see the work of the

QUESTION NO: 10
The following two passages deal with the political movements working for the woman's vote in America.
Passage 1
The first organized assertion of woman's rights in the United States was made at the Seneca Falls
convention in 1848. The convention, though, had little immediate impact because of the national issues
that would soon embroil the country. The contentious debates involving slavery and state's rights that
preceded the Civil War soon took center stage in national debates.
Thus woman's rights issues would have to wait until the war and its antecedent problems had been
addressed before they would be addressed. In 1869, two organizations were formed that would play
important roles in securing the woman's right to vote. The first was the American Woman's Suffrage
Association (AWSA). Leaving federal and constitutional issues aside, the AWSA focused their attention
on state-level politics. They also restricted their ambitions to securing the woman's vote and downplayed
discussion of women's full equality. Taking a different track, the National Woman's Suffrage Association
(NWSA), led by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, believed that the only way to assure the
long-term security of the woman's vote was to ground it in the constitution. The NWSA challenged the
exclusion of woman from the Fifteenth Amendment, the amendment that extended the vote to
African-American men. Furthermore, the NWSA linked the fight for suffrage with other inequalities faced
by woman, such as marriage laws, which greatly disadvantaged women.
By the late 1880s the differences that separated the two organizations had receded in importance as the
women's movement had become a substantial and broad-based political force in the country. In 1890, the
two organizations joined forces under the title of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). The NAWSA would go on to play a vital role in the further fight to achieve the woman's vote.
Passage 2
In 1920, when Tennessee became the thirty-eighth state to approve the constitutional amendment
securing the woman's right to vote, woman's suffrage became enshrined in the constitution. But woman's
suffrage did not happen in one fell swoop. The success of the woman's suffrage movement was the story
of a number of partial victories that led to the explicit endorsement of the woman's right to vote in the
constitution.
As early as the 1870s and 1880s, women had begun to win the right to vote in local affairs such as
municipal elections, school board elections, or prohibition measures. These "partial suffrages"
demonstrated that women could in fact responsibly and reasonably participate in a representative
democracy (at least as voters). Once such successes were achieved and maintained over a period of
time, restricting the full voting rights of woman became more and more suspect. If women were helping
decide who was on the local school board, why should they not also have a voice in deciding who was
president of the country? Such questions became more difficult for non-suffragists to answer, and thus the
logic of restricting the woman's vote began to crumble.
The word "antecedent" in 1st passage can best be replaced by

QUESTION NO: 11
Oliver Goldsmith (17301774) wrote criticism, plays, novels, biographies, travelogues, and nearly every
other conceivable kind of composition. This good-humored essay is from a series published in the Public
Ledger and then in book form as The Citizen of the World (1762).
Were we to estimate the learning of the English by the number of books that are every day published
among them, perhaps no country, not even China itself, could equal them in this particular. I have
reckoned not less than twenty-three new books published in one day, which, upon computation, makes
eight thousand three hundred and ninety-five in one year. Most of these are not confined to one single
science, but embrace the whole circle. History, politics, poetry, mathematics, metaphysics, and the
philosophy of nature, are all comprised in a manual no larger than that in which our children are taught the
letters. If then, we suppose the learned of England to read but an eighth part of the works which daily
come from the press and surely non can pretend to learning upon less easy terms), at this rate every
scholar will read a thousand books in one year. From such a calculation, you may conjecture what an
amazing fund of literature a man must be possessed of, who thus reads three new books every day, not
one of which but contains all the good things that ever were said or written.
And yet I know not how it happens, but the English are not, in reality so learned as would seem from this
calculation. We meet but few who know all arts and sciences to perfection; whether it is that the generality
are incapable of such extensive knowledge, or that the authors of those books are not adequate
instructors. In China, the Emperor himself takes cognizance of all the doctors in the kingdom who profess
authorship. In England, every man may be an author, that can write; for they have by law a liberty, not
only of saying what they please, but of being also as dull as they please.
Yesterday, as I testified to my surprise, to the man in black, where writers could be found in sufficient
number to throw off the books I saw daily crowding from the press. I at first imagined that their learned
seminaries might take this method of instructing the world. But, to obviate this objection, my companion
assured me that the doctors of colleges never wrote, and that some of them had actually forgot their
reading. "But if you desire," continued he, "to see a collection of authors, I fancy I can introduce you to a
club, which assembles every Saturday at seven . . . ." I accepted his invitation; we walked together, and
entered the house some time before the usual hour for the company assembling. My friend took this
opportunity of letting me into the characters of the principal members of the club . . .
"The first person," said he, "of our society is Doctor Nonentity, a metaphysician. Most people think him a
profound scholar, but, as he seldom speaks, I cannot be positive in that particular; he generally spreads
himself before the fire, sucks his pipe, talks little, drinks much, and is reckoned very good company. I'm
told he writes indexes to perfection: he makes essays on the origin of evil, philosophical inquiries upon
any subject, and draws up an answer to any book upon 24 hours' warning . . . ."
The word obviate (paragraph 4) means

QUESTION NO: 12
Jane Goodall was at first a (n) __________ in her field, but since then she has received many accolades
for her work.

QUESTION NO: 13
The kangaroo species __________ in the new environment where there was an abundant supply of food
and a(n) __________ of predators.

QUESTION NO: 14
But the Dust-Bin was going down then, and your father took but little, excepting from a liquid point of view.
Your mother's object in those visits was of a house-keeping character, and you was set on to whistle your
father out. Sometimes he came out, but generally not. Come or not come, however, all that part of his
existence which was unconnected with open Waitering was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged
by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted about the court, close secrets both of
you, and would scarcely have confessed under torture that you know your father, or that your father had
any name than Dick (which wasn't his name, though he was never known by any other), or that he had
kith or kin or chick or child.
Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined with your father's having a damp compartment, to
himself, behind a leaky cistern, at the Dust Bin, a sort of a cellar compartment, with a sink in it, and a smell,
and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, and three windows that didn't match each other or anything else, and
no daylight, caused your young mind to feel convinced that you must grow up to be a Waiter too; but you
did feel convinced of it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every one of you felt convinced
that you was born to the Waitering.
At this stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your father came home to your mother
in open broad daylight, of itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter, and took to his bed (leastwise,
your mother and family's bed), with the statement that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in
vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and a night, when gleams of reason and old
business fitfully illuminated his being, "Two and two is five. And three is sixpence." Interred in the
parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, and accompanied to the grave by as many Waiters
of long standing as could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, one), your bereaved
form was attired in a white neckankecher [sic], and you was took on from motives of benevolence at The
George and Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, supporting nature on what you found in the
plates(which was as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you
found in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by night you dropped asleep standing,
till you was cuffed awake, and by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coffee-room. Your
couch being sawdust; your counterpane being ashes of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart
under the smart tie of your white neck ankecher (or correctly speaking lower down and more to the left),
you picked up the rudiments of knowledge from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by calling
plate-washer, and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the corner-box partition, until
such time as you used the inkstand when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the Waiter
that you find yourself.
I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of the calling so long the calling of myself and
family, and the public interest in which is but too often very limited. We are not generally understood. No,
we are not. Allowance enough is not made for us. For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness
of spirits, or what might be termed indifference or apathy. Put it to yourself what would your own state of
mind be, if you was one of an enormous family every member of which except you was always greedy,
and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was regularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in
the day and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter [sic] you was, the more voracious all your
fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to
take a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and fresh (say, for the sake of
argument, only a hundred), whose imaginations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted
butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and dishes of that, each of 'em going on as if
him and you and the bill of fare was alone in the world.
The use of the term "expired" in 2nd paragraph in lieu of "died" is an example of

QUESTION NO: 15
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a prominent American writer of the twentieth century. This passage comes from
one of his short stories and tells the story of a young John Unger leaving home for boarding school. John
T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades a small town on the Mississippi River for
several generations. John's father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated
contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local phrase went, for her political
addresses; and young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from
New York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home
That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them
yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents.
Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston-Hades was too small to
hold their darling and gifted son. Now in Hades-as you know if you ever have been there the names of the
more fashionable preparatory schools and colleges mean very little. The inhabitants have been so long
out of the world that, though they make a show of keeping up-to-date in dress and manners and literature,
they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function that in Hades would be considered elaborate
would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef-princess as "perhaps a little tacky."
John T. Unger was on the eve of departure. Mrs. Unger, with maternal fatuity, packed his trunks full of
linen suits and electric fans, and Mr. Unger presented his son with an asbestos pocket-book stuffed with
money.
"Remember, you are always welcome here," he said. "You can be sure, boy, that we'll keep the home
fires burning." "I know," answered John huskily.
"Don't forget who you are and where you come from," continued his father proudly, "and you can do
nothing to harm you. You are an Unger-from Hades."
So the old man and the young shook hands, and John walked away with tears streaming from his eyes.
Ten minutes later he had passed outside the city limits and he stopped to glance back for the last time.
Over the gates the old-fashioned Victorian motto seemed strangely attractive to him. His father had tried
time and time again to have it changed to something with a little more push and verve about it, such as
"Hades-Your Opportunity," or else a plain "Welcome" sign set over a hearty handshake pricked out in
electric lights. The old motto was a little depressing, Mr. Unger had thought-but now.
So John took his look and then set his face resolutely toward his destination. And, as he turned away, the
lights of Hades against the sky seemed full of a warm and passionate beauty.
John's meditation on the town's sign in the passage serves primarily to suggest a contrast between