ght ago. Ah, Joe!
but it's hard lines for the orphans."

A ghastly hour moves on, dragging its regiment of panic in its
trail and leaving crimson blotches of cruelty along the path of
night.

"Are they all out, firemen?"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"No, they're not! There's a woman in the top window holding a
child in her arms--over yonder in the right-hand corner! The
ladders, there! A hundred pounds to the man who makes the
rescue!"

A dozen start. One man more supple than the others, and reckless
in his bravery, clambers to the top rung of the ladder.

"Too short!" he cries. "Hoist another!"

Up it goes. He mounts to the window, fastens the rope, lashes
mother and babe, swings them off into ugly emptiness, and lets
them down to be rescued by his comrades.

"Bravo, fireman!" shouts the crowd.

A crash breaks through the uproar of crackling timbers.

"Look alive, up there! Great God! The roof has fallen!"

The walls sway, rock, and tumble in with a deafening roar. The
spectators cease to breathe. The cold truth reveals itself. The
fireman has been carried into the seething furnace. An old
woman, bent with the weight of age, rushes through the fire
line, shrieking, raving, and wringing her hands and opening her
heart of grief.

"Poor John! He was all I had! And a brave lad he was, too! But
he's gone now. He lost his own life in savin' two more, and
now--now he's there, away in there!" she repeats, pointing to
the cruel oven.

The engines do their work. The flames die out. An eerie gloom
hangs over the ruins like a formidable, blackened pall.

And the noon of night is passed.

--ARDENNES JONES-FOSTER.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

1. Write two paragraphs on one of these: the race horse, the motor boat,
golfing, tennis; let the first be pure exposition and the second pure
description.

2. Select your own theme and do the same in two short extemporaneous
speeches.

3. Deliver a short original address in the over-ornamented style.

4. (_a_) Point out its defects; (_b_) recast it in a more effective
style; (_c_) show how the one surpasses the other.

5. Make a list of ten subjects which lend themselves to description in
the style you prefer.

6. Deliver a two-minute speech on any one of them, using chiefly, but
not solely, description.

7. For one minute, look at any object,