Replace clustering with a catalogue, and hand-write the references to judge it against
The pipeline's embed-and-cluster step is dead, and this commit holds both the evidence for that and the step proposed to replace it. Predicaments. Scenes are re-described as "what the person is up against", with no names, jobs or places, then embedded and clustered (redescribe.py, topic_words.py, topic_share.py). The pilot chose qwen3:14b over 3b by reading both side by side. Two defects the pilot exposed are fixed: split.py missed titles in quotes and a contents subtitle after a dash, so three stories had been merged into their neighbours, and strip_names.py read New York place names as people. The corrected corpus is probe/v2 (97 stories, 839 scenes); carry_summaries.py reuses the 829 unchanged v1 summaries. Topic share fell from 20% to 13% at k=60, short of the pre-registered 10%. Hand references. Three corpora were read scene by scene and written up by hand, under the same prompt rules the local models get, as a baseline to judge them against: O. Henry (probe/v2/claude, 839 scenes, 20 situations), Wharton's Descent of Man (probe/wharton, 262 scenes, 16 groups) and Jacobs's The Lady of the Barge (probe/jacobs, 157 scenes, 19 groups). Each has its own README and a readable page. No inference was used for any of them. Catalogue. probe/catalogue maps every hand group in the three references onto 36 situation entries, with an answer key per corpus and one recurrence rule applied to all three. classify.py assigns a scene one entry or none, leave-one-corpus- out; score.py checks it against the key, with a self-test on random labels. Why clustering is out: hand-written predicaments, embedded and clustered exactly as the model's were, agree with the hand grouping at ARI 0.05 — no better than the 14B text's 0.07. Better rewriting cannot rescue it. Embeddings cannot even shortlist: the hand label is the nearest entry 13% of the time and in the top 8 half the time. The classification runs are not here. The dev and test runs are pre-registered in probe/catalogue/README.md with the bar set beforehand, and are blocked on the inference host, whose GPU has fallen off the PCIe bus three times. The 30-scene partial output in out/ is not a result. Review page. The situation review is now a browser page rather than JSON edited by hand (review_page.py, review_page_logic.cjs with Node tests, format schema v2). It has never been rendered in a real browser. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014BygvsUXV9eU6oHkTCkKZ1
This commit is contained in:
JesseMarkowitz
co-authored by
Claude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5
parent
fa3769d0fe
commit
e5617b86ba
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[
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{"chunk":0,"story":0,"summary":"A writer on assignment casts about for someone who can tell him what the city means, and starts with the woman he courts.","predicament":"A man needs an answer only other people can give him, and does not know whom to ask first."},
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{"chunk":1,"story":0,"summary":"A man presses the woman he courts for an answer she turns aside with jokes; he insists, and she only smiles.","predicament":"Someone presses another for an answer they keep deflecting, and must decide whether to keep pushing."},
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{"chunk":2,"story":0,"summary":"A man questions a bartender about the city's meaning; the bartender is pulled away by a neighbour's errand and talks about his family instead.","predicament":"Someone seeks an answer from a busy person whose own small duties keep crowding out the question."},
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{"chunk":3,"story":0,"summary":"A man asks a policeman what the city says; the policeman says he only takes orders, then talks about his new wife.","predicament":"Someone asks an official a large question and gets only the official's private life in reply."},
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{"chunk":4,"story":0,"summary":"A man asks a poet for a grand utterance summing up the whole city, laying out at length what the answer should contain.","predicament":"Someone asks an expert for a sweeping answer, and specifies it so tightly that no answer can fit."},
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{"chunk":5,"story":0,"summary":"A poet ignores the question to talk about a girl, and a news-seller wants only his money; the questioner leaves with nothing.","predicament":"Everyone someone asks is absorbed in their own affairs, leaving the question unanswered and the asker alone."},
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{"chunk":6,"story":0,"summary":"A man returns to the woman he courts and sits silent beside her; she notes he has not spoken, and that is his answer.","predicament":"Someone comes back to the person who matters, and finds silence says what all the asking could not."},
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{"chunk":7,"story":1,"summary":"A low-paid clerk and his wife live an ordinary flat-bound life, with neither poverty, love nor war to mark it.","predicament":"Someone's life is comfortable, small and unmarked, and they want something to happen in it."},
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{"chunk":8,"story":1,"summary":"A housewife's days are made of bargains, window-sills and small superiorities over a neighbour, in a city where large things happen suddenly.","predicament":"Someone fills empty days with small rivalries while chance waits to overturn everything without warning."},
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{"chunk":9,"story":1,"summary":"A clerk tries to make conversation with his wife about his workplace, fails, and goes out for a cigar instead.","predicament":"Someone tries to make talk with the person nearest them, gets nothing back, and steps outside."},
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{"chunk":10,"story":1,"summary":"A customer finds himself penniless and offers to pay tomorrow; the shopkeeper attacks him and the two fight into the street.","predicament":"Someone asks for a moment's trust over a trifle and is answered with violence."},
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{"chunk":11,"story":1,"summary":"A fleeing man strikes the officer who intervenes, runs, and is picked up by a stranger's car that carries him to a mansion.","predicament":"Someone in flight from a trivial quarrel is swept into a stranger's plans without being asked."},
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{"chunk":12,"story":1,"summary":"A wealthy young woman, mistaking a stranger for a champion, asks him to confront a man who has insulted her.","predicament":"Someone is mistaken for the person another needs, and is asked to fight a stranger's battle."},
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{"chunk":13,"story":1,"summary":"A man takes a woman's flower and confronts her enemy on her behalf; the young man puts him out the door effortlessly.","predicament":"Someone accepts a favour, acts as a champion, and is removed without effort by the one they challenged."},
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{"chunk":14,"story":1,"summary":"The quarrel proves a lovers' game between a couple; the outsider walks home and resumes the dull talk he left.","predicament":"Someone discovers the drama they were pulled into was never theirs, and returns to an unchanged life."},
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{"chunk":15,"story":2,"summary":"A young shop assistant behind a counter is beautiful and shrewd, schooled by the other girls in how to handle men who buy.","predicament":"A young person with looks and little money learns to guard themselves among strangers who want their attention."},
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{"chunk":16,"story":2,"summary":"A rich young man wanders into a store where the counter girls flirt with cheap admirers, and the shop assistant meets his eye.","predicament":"Someone of high standing strays into a place where their advantages mean nothing, and hesitates."},
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{"chunk":17,"story":2,"summary":"A rich man realises he stands among ordinary suitors, resolves to win the shop assistant anyway, and leaves his card on the counter.","predicament":"Someone wants a person far outside their circle, and has no proper way to approach them."},
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{"chunk":18,"story":2,"summary":"A rich man asks permission to call; the shop assistant refuses her crowded home and names a street corner instead.","predicament":"Someone accepts a suitor's approach but cannot let them see how they live."},
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{"chunk":19,"story":2,"summary":"A workmate teases the shop assistant about her rich admirer, while he worries that her easy consent means she is common.","predicament":"Someone's suitor takes their ease of manner for cheapness, and neither can read the other's world."},
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{"chunk":20,"story":2,"summary":"A rich man proposes marriage; the shop assistant disbelieves his station and takes his declarations for the usual flattery.","predicament":"Someone offers everything they have and is not believed by the person they offer it to."},
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{"chunk":21,"story":2,"summary":"A suitor paints a life of foreign travel and palaces; the shop assistant recognises the picture and stands up.","predicament":"Someone describes the future they are offering, and the other hears something entirely different in it."},
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{"chunk":22,"story":2,"summary":"The shop assistant ends it and tells a workmate that the rich man only wanted a cheap wedding trip.","predicament":"Someone rejects the best offer they will ever get, having misread it completely."},
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{"chunk":23,"story":3,"summary":"A man belongs to a clannish set who live in hotel lobbies and keep their home lives out of sight.","predicament":"Someone's standing among their own set depends on keeping their private life invisible."},
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{"chunk":24,"story":3,"summary":"A man treats his wife as a fixture at home, dining out nightly with his set and barely hearing her talk.","predicament":"Someone has stopped noticing the person they live with, and does not know what they are missing."},
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{"chunk":25,"story":3,"summary":"A wife asks her husband to take her out after three years indoors; he agrees, and she comes down transformed.","predicament":"Someone finally asks for what they have gone without for years, and is answered."},
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{"chunk":26,"story":3,"summary":"A husband, surprised by his wife's appearance, changes his plan and resolves to show her to his friends rather than hide her.","predicament":"Someone realises what they kept hidden is worth showing, and reverses course to display it."},
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{"chunk":27,"story":3,"summary":"A man's friends stare as he passes with his wife; at dinner she blooms, and shame reaches him for the years she spent shut in.","predicament":"Someone sees what their neglect cost another, and feels it in front of witnesses."},
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{"chunk":28,"story":3,"summary":"An influential friend joins their table and the wife charms him and a crowd of men, while her husband sits without words.","predicament":"Someone watches the person they took for granted admired by everyone but themselves."},
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{"chunk":29,"story":3,"summary":"The husband takes his wife's cloak before his friend can, walks her home, and refuses to return to his set.","predicament":"Someone, made jealous of what they neglected, chooses to keep it rather than hand it round."},
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{"chunk":30,"story":4,"summary":"Three weeks married, a bride idly asks her husband for out-of-season fruit, and he leaves at once to get it.","predicament":"Someone newly devoted takes a passing whim as a command and sets out to satisfy it."},
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{"chunk":31,"story":4,"summary":"A husband tries a street vendor and a friend's establishment; both say the fruit is out of season and offer a substitute.","predicament":"Someone hunting one particular thing is repeatedly offered a substitute they refuse to take."},
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{"chunk":32,"story":4,"summary":"Finding every shop shut, a husband goes to a police captain and offers to lead a raid on a gambling house.","predicament":"Someone, blocked at every ordinary door, offers an official information to get inside a closed place."},
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{"chunk":33,"story":4,"summary":"A man guides a dozen officers to a gambling room, the door is broken in, and most of the players escape.","predicament":"Someone sets a large action in motion for a reason nobody around them suspects."},
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{"chunk":34,"story":4,"summary":"The gambling house's owner attacks the guide; after beating him, the guide hunts the supper room and questions a servant about fruit.","predicament":"Someone fights through real danger for a trifle that only matters to one person."},
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{"chunk":35,"story":4,"summary":"One piece of fruit survives the supper table; the man pockets it and has a druggist check the rib he hurt falling downstairs.","predicament":"Someone gets the thing they went out for, at a cost nobody will ever weigh."},
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{"chunk":36,"story":4,"summary":"The husband lays the fruit in his wife's hand; she says she would rather have had the other kind after all.","predicament":"Someone delivers what was asked and learns the asker has already changed their mind."},
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{"chunk":37,"story":5,"summary":"Spring is announced in the city by newspaper items, but the true sign is when one person goes seeking another.","predicament":"Someone waits for a sign of change and finds it only when feeling moves them."},
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{"chunk":38,"story":5,"summary":"Three idlers on a bench plot how to get the one dollar a married man's wife earned by washing.","predicament":"Idle companions plan how to take the only money earned by someone who works for it."},
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{"chunk":39,"story":5,"summary":"The husband boasts he can choke the money out of his wife, then goes home to a woman who despises him.","predicament":"Someone boasts of a cruelty to companions, then faces alone the person they must get it from."},
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{"chunk":40,"story":5,"summary":"The husband claims a new position and asks for the money; his wife calls him a liar and refuses.","predicament":"Someone invents a respectable reason for needing money and is seen through at once."},
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{"chunk":41,"story":5,"summary":"The husband tries self-pity; his wife mocks it, and he decides to try the tenderness he abandoned years ago.","predicament":"Someone runs out of excuses and considers using affection they no longer feel."},
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{"chunk":42,"story":5,"summary":"The husband puts his arm around his wife and calls her old endearments; she breaks down, holds him, and hurries out.","predicament":"Someone performs an affection they do not mean, and the other believes it entirely."},
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{"chunk":43,"story":5,"summary":"The wife returns having spent the dollar on a tonic for her husband, and sits on his lap; his friends still wait.","predicament":"Someone's pretence is repaid with a kindness that costs them exactly what they were after."}
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]
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[
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{"chunk":44,"story":6,"summary":"A young man contrives to speak to a well-dressed young woman on a park bench; she invites him to sit and talk.","predicament":"Someone engineers a meeting with a stranger they have watched, and is unexpectedly welcomed."},
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{"chunk":45,"story":6,"summary":"A young woman rebukes a stranger's familiar flirtation, then asks him about the passing crowd and hints she is above them.","predicament":"Someone misjudges a stranger's station, is corrected, and must start the acquaintance again."},
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{"chunk":46,"story":6,"summary":"A young woman claims a famous name and weariness of wealth; the stranger, curious, catches an inconsistency in her account.","predicament":"Someone builds an impressive story about themselves and a listener notices a detail that does not fit."},
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{"chunk":47,"story":6,"summary":"The woman explains away her slip as a fashion, says she could love a lowly worker, and asks the stranger's occupation.","predicament":"Someone repairs their story, then invites the other to declare what they are."},
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{"chunk":48,"story":6,"summary":"The man says he is a cashier across the street; the woman hurries away, telling him her car waits at the corner.","predicament":"Each claims a position that suits the other's expectation, and the meeting is broken off."},
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{"chunk":49,"story":6,"summary":"Told to wait, the man follows the woman instead, and watches her take her place at the cashier's desk she described.","predicament":"Someone disobeys an instruction and discovers the other's grand account was invented."},
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{"chunk":50,"story":6,"summary":"The man drops the woman's book on the grass, steps into the waiting automobile and orders his chauffeur to his club.","predicament":"Someone learns another's pretence and quietly withdraws, their own greater one never discovered."},
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{"chunk":51,"story":7,"summary":"A city breeds a tribe of onlookers who gather in a ring around any accident or oddity, however trivial.","predicament":"People crowd to watch other people's misfortunes, making a pastime of them."},
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{"chunk":52,"story":7,"summary":"Two devoted onlookers meet across the body of an injured man, and one falls in love as the other shoves through the crowd.","predicament":"Two people recognise each other by a shared appetite that everyone else finds distasteful."},
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{"chunk":53,"story":7,"summary":"The two onlookers remain after the crowd goes, staring frankly at each other's physical defects without speaking.","predicament":"Two people court each other by the only manners they know, which others would find rude."},
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{"chunk":54,"story":7,"summary":"On a dull day the two fight into a crowd watching a sign-painter, and the man offers to show her a rarer sight.","predicament":"Someone courts another by offering the one thing they both value, however small."},
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{"chunk":55,"story":7,"summary":"The pair share an injury, a stakeout and three days on a plank, and pledge themselves as a policeman drives them away.","predicament":"Two people build a shared life entirely out of a habit that others move them along for."},
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{"chunk":56,"story":7,"summary":"A wedding is set, the church filled, and outside the crowd of onlookers presses and fights to see the couple arrive.","predicament":"Someone's private occasion becomes the spectacle that a crowd has come to feed on."},
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{"chunk":57,"story":7,"summary":"The couple never arrive; they are dragged from the crowd, trampled, having joined it to watch themselves be married.","predicament":"Someone's lifelong habit makes them miss the one occasion that was theirs."},
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{"chunk":58,"story":8,"summary":"A lawyer hands a young heir a thousand dollars and tells him he must render a full account of how he spends it.","predicament":"Someone receives an awkward sum on condition they explain exactly what they did with it."},
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{"chunk":59,"story":8,"summary":"The heir tells a club acquaintance that the whole fortune went elsewhere, and mentions a quiet ward left only a ring.","predicament":"Someone passed over by a will laughs it off, and notices another was treated worse."},
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{"chunk":60,"story":8,"summary":"The acquaintance lists worthy uses for the money, then says the heir will only buy a dancer a jewel.","predicament":"Someone asks advice and is told, insultingly, exactly what they are expected to do."},
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{"chunk":61,"story":8,"summary":"The heir offers a dancer a jewel and she barely attends; he then asks a driver and a street seller what they would do.","predicament":"Someone tests a cheap intention against the people around them, and finds nobody impressed."},
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{"chunk":62,"story":8,"summary":"Learning the ward received nothing, the heir gives her the thousand dollars, saying a late amendment to the will provided it.","predicament":"Someone gives away their whole share disguised as another's due, so that it cannot be refused."},
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{"chunk":63,"story":8,"summary":"The heir tells the ward he loves her, is refused, and writes an account naming the money as a debt of happiness.","predicament":"Someone who has just given everything away is turned down, and says nothing of what they did."},
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{"chunk":64,"story":8,"summary":"A codicil promises fifty thousand if the money was spent unselfishly; the heir tears up the account that would prove it.","predicament":"Someone can claim a fortune only by revealing a kindness, and destroys the proof instead."},
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{"chunk":65,"story":9,"summary":"A farmer's son becomes a celebrated city lawyer, remade by the city into an impeccable and narrow gentleman.","predicament":"Someone who climbed out of a humble start is reshaped by the place that rewarded them."},
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{"chunk":66,"story":9,"summary":"The lawyer crowns his rise by marrying a woman of the oldest family, cold and high above every other climber.","predicament":"Someone's greatest success is a marriage they must keep proving themselves worthy of."},
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{"chunk":67,"story":9,"summary":"The wife finds a letter from her husband's farming mother and announces they will visit, asking whether the farm entertains.","predicament":"Someone's hidden origins are discovered by the person they most feared would see them."},
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{"chunk":68,"story":9,"summary":"They arrive at the country station, where the husband's brother jeers cheerfully and is silenced by the wife's appearance.","predicament":"Someone brings a grand partner home, where the old familiarity and the new grandeur cannot mix."},
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{"chunk":69,"story":9,"summary":"The old countryside takes hold of the husband, and his wife beside him begins to seem remote and unreal.","predicament":"Someone returning to where they came from feels the person beside them turn into a stranger."},
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{"chunk":70,"story":9,"summary":"On the porch the husband throws off his manners, pulls off his father's boots and challenges his brother to wrestle.","predicament":"Someone sheds the manner they built, in front of the one person it was built for."},
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{"chunk":71,"story":9,"summary":"The husband wrestles, chases his sister with an insect, dances and clowns, while his wife sits silent and unreadable.","predicament":"Someone lets themselves go completely, watched in silence by the person who can ruin them."},
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{"chunk":72,"story":9,"summary":"The wife retires; her husband follows, expecting condemnation, and she begins by saying she thought she married a gentleman.","predicament":"Someone waits for the judgement they are sure they have earned."},
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{"chunk":73,"story":9,"summary":"The sentence ends differently: the wife says she finds she married something better, and asks her husband to kiss her.","predicament":"Someone braced for rejection is accepted for exactly what they were ashamed of."},
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{"chunk":74,"story":10,"summary":"A young man disinherited for disobeying his uncle spends his last coin and takes a park bench with nothing left.","predicament":"Someone loses everything for refusing to obey, and has nowhere to go."},
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{"chunk":75,"story":10,"summary":"On the bench a ragged stranger tells the ruined man that tomorrow he inherits millions, and that he is afraid.","predicament":"Someone at their lowest meets a stranger terrified by the good fortune about to arrive."},
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{"chunk":76,"story":10,"summary":"The stranger explains he is a cast-off nephew summoned back to be heir, and begs the price of a drink.","predicament":"Someone recounts their fall to a stranger and asks them for money they do not have."},
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{"chunk":77,"story":10,"summary":"The stranger panics, terrified that some accident will kill him in the hours before he can claim the fortune.","predicament":"Someone about to receive everything is paralysed by fear of losing it in the meantime."},
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{"chunk":78,"story":10,"summary":"The ruined man calms the stranger, uses his standing at a hotel bar to get him food, and eats none himself.","predicament":"Someone spends the last of their credit on a stranger rather than on themselves."},
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{"chunk":79,"story":10,"summary":"They take neighbouring benches; the stranger promises to get the ruined man a job once his fortune arrives.","predicament":"Someone is promised help by a person whose fortune has not yet arrived."},
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{"chunk":80,"story":10,"summary":"At the lawyer's office next morning the stranger is told his uncle has reconsidered and will not take him back.","predicament":"Someone arrives to claim what they were promised and is told it has been withdrawn."},
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{"chunk":81,"story":10,"summary":"The stranger walks out steadily cursing his uncle; the lawyer then tells the ruined man his own uncle relents, and he faints.","predicament":"Someone stood firm through ruin and collapses at the news that it is over."},
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{"chunk":82,"story":11,"summary":"A writer explains that editors discard manuscripts claiming to be true, and that fiction is held in more esteem than fact.","predicament":"Someone works in a trade where the truth is the least welcome thing they can offer."},
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{"chunk":83,"story":11,"summary":"A storekeeper's son comes to the city to write, carrying two grand historical manuscripts and a small local reputation.","predicament":"Someone arrives in a larger place with work that impressed the small one they left."},
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{"chunk":84,"story":11,"summary":"The older writer lodges the newcomer, tests him with an assignment he refuses, and the two live cheaply and happily.","predicament":"Someone takes a newcomer in hand and is pleased when they refuse the obvious advice."},
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{"chunk":85,"story":11,"summary":"The newcomer's love stories come back rejected; the older writer finds them well made but empty of living substance.","predicament":"Someone's work is correct in every part and lifeless, and they cannot see why."},
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{"chunk":86,"story":11,"summary":"Told he must fall in love before he can write it, the newcomer does, and is wrecked by a careless young woman.","predicament":"Someone takes advice to feel a thing for themselves, and it costs them more than expected."},
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{"chunk":87,"story":11,"summary":"The newcomer writes the story while the feeling is on him; it is sentimental drivel, and all his craft has vanished.","predicament":"Someone writes straight from feeling and produces the worst work they have ever done."},
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{"chunk":88,"story":11,"summary":"After recovering, the newcomer is worshipped by another woman he only mildly likes, and sits down to write again.","predicament":"Someone is loved fiercely by a person they do not love, and uses it."},
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{"chunk":89,"story":11,"summary":"The new story is brilliant; the newcomer says an artist must be a cad, tears it up and goes home to his father's store.","predicament":"Someone finds they can only succeed by using another's feeling, and refuses the success."}
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]
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[
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{
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"chunk": 90,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "A young woman about to sail receives the suitor who wronged her coldly, and produces a keepsake motto as evidence against him.",
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"predicament": "Someone facing the person who wronged them keeps the proof of the promise that was broken."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 91,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "The suitor draws a second motto counselling forgiveness and pleads to be taken back, renouncing the woman who lured him away.",
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"predicament": "Someone begs forgiveness for a betrayal, using whatever chance puts in their hand."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 92,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "A street seller rests his cart nightly under the window where a celebrated dancer sits while her maids dress her hair.",
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"predicament": "A working person and an admired one share a place daily without either being anything to the other."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 93,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "The dancer asks the street seller whether she is beautiful; he refuses to flatter her and talks about the weather.",
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"predicament": "Someone used to admiration meets a person who will not give it, and keeps asking."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 94,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "The street seller mocks the dancer's fishing for compliments, says his plain evening contents him, and goes in to read.",
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"predicament": "Someone declines another's power over them and states plainly what they would rather have."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 95,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "Piqued, the dancer works daily on the seller until she makes him look into her eyes; next evening he comes dressed up.",
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"predicament": "Someone pursues another only to prove that they can, and succeeds."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 96,
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"story": 12,
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"summary": "Bored the moment he is won, the dancer laughs at the seller's offer of his savings until he leaves; then she screams.",
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"predicament": "Someone wins another's devotion, finds it worthless, and is undone by news of their own."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 97,
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"story": 13,
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"summary": "Nature moves in circles and the city in straight lines, and the city remakes whatever comes into it to its angles.",
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"predicament": "A place remakes everyone who enters it into its own shape."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 98,
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"story": 13,
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"summary": "Two mountain families kill each other over forty years until one man of each remains, and one of them disappears.",
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"predicament": "An inherited quarrel consumes everyone until only its two last holders are left."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 99,
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"story": 13,
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"summary": "The last survivor of one family learns his enemy lives in the city, packs a revolver and a knife, and follows him.",
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"predicament": "Someone carries an old obligation of vengeance into a place where it has no standing."
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},
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{
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"chunk": 100,
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"story": 13,
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"summary": "Hunting his enemy along the crowded avenues, the mountain man finds a world of straight lines and rushing strangers.",
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"predicament": "Someone arrives to do what they came for and finds the place itself defeats them."
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},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 101,
|
||||
"story": 13,
|
||||
"summary": "Unseen by thousands of passing faces, the stranger fails even to open a door and is moved along by a policeman.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone surrounded by people is more alone than they have ever been, and unwanted."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 102,
|
||||
"story": 13,
|
||||
"summary": "Jostled and abused by traffic and passers-by, the stranger meets his hereditary enemy at last and shakes his hand gladly.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone meets the enemy they came to destroy and finds them the only familiar face."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 103,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "A poet throws down a magazine and declares romance dead, cataloguing its contents to a cheerful clerk who disagrees by existing.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone declares the thing they live for extinct, to a listener who does not care."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 104,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "A plain-dressed clerk sits at the poet's window above an old garden, where an old gentleman refuses to sell his house.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone holds out against every offer to give up what they love."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 105,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "The clerk visits often as a useful foil, and the poet reads him his printed verses about four roses.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone keeps a companion around chiefly to feel superior to them."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 106,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "The clerk cuts the reading short and leaves; next day the poet sees a beautiful young woman at the opposite window.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone whose work goes unheard is consoled by a stranger glimpsed at a distance."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 107,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "Four roses appear in the young woman's window and the poet reads them as her answer to his published verses.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone reads a message meant for another as a sign addressed to themselves."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 108,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "A flower book tells the poet a meeting is expected; the clerk arrives, checks his watch and hurries off to an appointment.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone assembles proof of their good fortune while the truth walks in and out of the room."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 109,
|
||||
"story": 14,
|
||||
"summary": "The clerk explains that the roses are his fiancee's signal of the hour, and that the flowerpot means half-past.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone's private sign is explained away by the ordinary arrangement of two other people."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 110,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "Officials proclaim that during the heat the people may sleep in the parks, and whole neighbourhoods move out into one.",
|
||||
"predicament": "An order given for people's good turns them out of their homes."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 111,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "Tenants pack bedding and household goods, protesting to the janitor, while an officer orders everyone out to the park.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone is told by an official to leave a comfortable home and has no appeal."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 112,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "The narrator praises the mixed and companionable life of the tenement on hot nights, then describes being herded into the dark park.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone is rescued from a life they were content with, by people who never asked."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 113,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "The officer threatens imprisonment for refusal, and the tenants pass the night in the dark judging strangers by feel.",
|
||||
"predicament": "People forced together in the dark can tell friend from stranger only by touch."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 114,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "Two tenants complain that the rent runs on while they lie in the grass, and joke that this is the city's charity.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone pays for a home they are not allowed to sleep in."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 115,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "In the dark the social distinctions of the building collapse into a heap, and by morning five engagements have been announced.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Forced together, people who despised each other by daylight find they can pair off."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 116,
|
||||
"story": 15,
|
||||
"summary": "A well-dressed man stops his car to ask why the people lie in the grass, and takes the answer down in a book.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone comfortable asks why others are suffering, and promises to see to it."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 117,
|
||||
"story": 16,
|
||||
"summary": "A big idle striker wakes restless and unaccountably disturbed, knocks his brothers aside, and cannot say what ails him.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone is unsettled by a feeling they cannot name and will not admit."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 118,
|
||||
"story": 16,
|
||||
"summary": "His mother says the season is in his bones; he denies every sign of spring and goes to his usual idle corner.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone denies a change that everyone around them can feel."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 119,
|
||||
"story": 16,
|
||||
"summary": "He looks for signs of the season, orders a drink and leaves it untasted, and snaps at the bartender who mocks him.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone's usual pleasures stop satisfying them, and they take it out on bystanders."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 120,
|
||||
"story": 16,
|
||||
"summary": "A friendly barber insists the season is coming; the restless man denies it, then fights a standing enemy in the street.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone denies what is happening to them and picks a fight instead."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 121,
|
||||
"story": 16,
|
||||
"summary": "He hunts a sentimental song under a pretext, then knocks at the young woman's door and asks her opinion of the weather.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone approaches the person they want with a pretext instead of a reason."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 122,
|
||||
"story": 16,
|
||||
"summary": "He names the feeling as her, says he starts work Monday, and she accepts; snow falls and he calls it springtime anyway.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone finally names what they want, and the weather no longer decides anything."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 123,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "A southern saying summons an imaginary old man who kills fools, invoked in every household with a smile or a tear.",
|
||||
"predicament": "People invoke an imagined punisher for the foolishness they see in each other."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 124,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "A writer explains how an illustrator wrecks a story with details he never wrote, and how far an artist stands from an author.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone's work is handed to another who remakes it wrongly and publicly."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 125,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The writer befriends a cheerfully melancholy artist who is engaged to a factory worker earning eight dollars a week.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone loves a person far below their family's expectations, and does not hide it."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 126,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The artist's rich father objects to the match, so the artist gives up the inheritance and lives on credit and sausages.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone gives up a fortune rather than give up the person they intend to marry."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 127,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The young woman proves natural and unpretending at a cheap cafe, and the writer still tells the artist he is a fool.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone judges another's choice foolish even after meeting what they chose."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 128,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The artist plans to marry within the week on the price of one picture, while the writer drinks and repeats his verdict.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone commits to a plan they cannot afford, and is told so by a friend."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 129,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "A grey old man appears and orders the artist to give up the young woman and come home; the artist seems not to hear.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone is given a last ultimatum by an authority whose threat no longer reaches them."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 130,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The artist insists nobody spoke to him; the writer, believing he alone can see the visitor, follows the old man out.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone believes they alone can see a danger and rushes to avert it."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 131,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The writer accuses the old man of destroying youth and talent for old standards, and calls the artist the wisest man he knows.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone confronts the old power that punishes the young for choosing differently."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 132,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The old man asks about the young woman, hears her defended, and asks to have the artist brought out to him.",
|
||||
"predicament": "Someone asks about the person they objected to, and begins to reconsider."
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
"chunk": 133,
|
||||
"story": 17,
|
||||
"summary": "The old man gives in and asks the artist to bring her home; he is the father, unspoken to for a year.",
|
||||
"predicament": "An estranged parent yields, and the quarrel that cost a fortune ends with a handshake."
|
||||
}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":134,"story":18,"summary":"A quiet hotel offers a few guests the pleasures of a mountain resort, and they hide there fearing discovery by other pleasure-seekers.","predicament":"People guard a comfortable refuge and fear the crowd that would spoil it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":135,"story":18,"summary":"A gracious lady arrives and is treated by staff and guests as the perfect ornament of their exclusive retreat.","predicament":"Someone's bearing alone persuades everyone around them of a station they never state."},
|
||||
{"chunk":136,"story":18,"summary":"Rumours make the lady a cosmopolitan; a well-dressed young man arrives, asks about sailings and settles in for a few days.","predicament":"Two strangers each arrive carrying an account of themselves that the place is eager to believe."},
|
||||
{"chunk":137,"story":18,"summary":"A dropped handkerchief introduces them, and the two agree that the old resorts are ruined by the crowds who follow them.","predicament":"Two people flatter each other with a shared complaint neither has the standing to make."},
|
||||
{"chunk":138,"story":18,"summary":"Each says they leave on Monday, she for a chateau abroad, and they spend a last evening together on the balcony.","predicament":"Two people approach the end of a pretence that neither wants to be the first to break."},
|
||||
{"chunk":139,"story":18,"summary":"The lady confesses she sells hosiery for eight dollars a week and saved a year to live like a lady once.","predicament":"Someone confesses the truth about themselves rather than leave the other deceived."},
|
||||
{"chunk":140,"story":18,"summary":"He writes her a receipt: he collects instalments on that very dress, saved as she did, and they plan an outing together.","predicament":"Someone answers another's confession with the same one, and the pretence becomes a shared joke."},
|
||||
{"chunk":141,"story":19,"summary":"A village-born actress has risen to stardom, and a young character actor seeks the rustic part in her next play.","predicament":"Someone who left a small place is now the judge of who may imitate it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":142,"story":19,"summary":"Told the star rejects every imitation of a country dweller, the actor spends three days gathering the facts of her home village.","predicament":"Someone studies another's origins in order to pass a test only that person can set."},
|
||||
{"chunk":143,"story":19,"summary":"At the star's late supper table an awkward country youth enters, and the whole room turns to look at him.","predicament":"Someone enters a room where they plainly do not belong, and is watched by everyone."},
|
||||
{"chunk":144,"story":19,"summary":"The youth greets the star as a neighbour and retails the village news until she draws him to a private table.","predicament":"News of the place someone escaped pulls their attention away from all their present company."},
|
||||
{"chunk":145,"story":19,"summary":"She cannot recall him but asks after her family, and he answers with the changes at her parents' house.","predicament":"Someone asks a stranger for news of the family they have not visited."},
|
||||
{"chunk":146,"story":19,"summary":"He describes her mother watching the road daily for her return, and gives her a rose from the home doorstep.","predicament":"Someone is shown how long they have been waited for by the people they left."},
|
||||
{"chunk":147,"story":19,"summary":"She laughs the village off and goes; when the actor calls next day her maid says she has returned there to live.","predicament":"Someone laughs off what moved them, then abandons everything to go back."},
|
||||
{"chunk":148,"story":20,"summary":"A detective meets an old friend on the street, takes him aside and asks straight out why he killed the murdered man.","predicament":"Someone must act against a person they owe a debt of friendship to."},
|
||||
{"chunk":149,"story":20,"summary":"The detective produces the gold pencil he once gave his friend, found at the scene, and warns him he must do his duty.","predicament":"Someone's own gift becomes the evidence that convicts the person they gave it to."},
|
||||
{"chunk":150,"story":20,"summary":"The killer explains the shooting and the theft, then says the detective owes him a thousand dollars and cannot touch him.","predicament":"Someone escapes justice by holding an old favour over the person who must judge them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":151,"story":20,"summary":"The detective concedes that the debt binds him, and says nothing else could have bought the man out of his hands.","predicament":"Someone is stopped from doing their duty by a debt they never repaid."},
|
||||
{"chunk":152,"story":20,"summary":"The detective says he will resign, and the killer's boasting of past crimes turns his old gratitude into cold disgust.","predicament":"Someone repaying an old kindness discovers the person they are protecting deserves nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":153,"story":20,"summary":"Enraged at the mention of newspapers, the killer goes to a telephone to prove to an editor what he thinks of them.","predicament":"Someone's vanity drives them to taunt the one power they have not accounted for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":154,"story":20,"summary":"On the telephone he confesses the murder to the editor and proves it with a detail only the killer could know.","predicament":"Someone proves their boast by handing over the one fact that can convict them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":155,"story":20,"summary":"He hangs up gloating and spends the night at shows and suppers, while the detective broods and then begins to wonder.","predicament":"Someone celebrates their safety while the person beside them looks for a way out."},
|
||||
{"chunk":156,"story":20,"summary":"At dawn the newsboys cry the papers; the detective buys one, looks at the front page and begins writing with the pencil.","predicament":"Someone finds a way to do their duty and clear their debt at the same time."},
|
||||
{"chunk":157,"story":21,"summary":"A village woman comes to the city with an easel to study art; at home she was reckless, here she looks a spinster.","predicament":"Someone leaves a small place for a bold life and arrives as nobody in particular."},
|
||||
{"chunk":158,"story":21,"summary":"She takes a cheap room and lessons from a fraudulent teacher, one of the hopeless army of the mediocre.","predicament":"Someone pays for training from a teacher who has nothing to teach them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":159,"story":21,"summary":"After a day of small defeats she accepts a dinner invitation from the boarding-house's showy man of the world.","predicament":"Someone worn down by failures accepts an invitation they would otherwise refuse."},
|
||||
{"chunk":160,"story":21,"summary":"He takes her to a fashionable resort of artists, where a young man at a table hails him and invites them to join.","predicament":"Someone is taken into a world they have only read about, on another's introduction."},
|
||||
{"chunk":161,"story":21,"summary":"Dazzled by the music and company, she drinks what is poured for her and speaks fondly of the farm she came from.","predicament":"Someone out of their depth speaks of home and is heard as a curiosity."},
|
||||
{"chunk":162,"story":21,"summary":"Home in her room, conscience overwhelms her, and at midnight she writes to her sweetheart renouncing him as one lost forever.","predicament":"Someone judges one evening as the ruin of their whole character, and gives up their future."},
|
||||
{"chunk":163,"story":21,"summary":"She resolves that no return is possible and models herself on famous fallen women, keeping her room for two days.","predicament":"Someone commits to a grand ruin that nobody else has noticed happening."},
|
||||
{"chunk":164,"story":21,"summary":"Her sweetheart arrives, tells her to wipe off the paint and pack, mentions the trees at home, and she goes.","predicament":"Someone's grand renunciation is ended by the plain arrival of the person renounced."},
|
||||
{"chunk":165,"story":22,"summary":"A quarter of the city shelters exiles of many nations, who pass through its cafes and lodging houses and vanish into service.","predicament":"People arriving with nothing find shelter among others like them and are quickly replaced."},
|
||||
{"chunk":166,"story":22,"summary":"In a struggling rooming house the daughter keeps the rooms, and the best lodger is a splendid, prompt-paying foreigner.","predicament":"Someone working in a poor household is courted by the one person there who pays."},
|
||||
{"chunk":167,"story":22,"summary":"The lodger courts the daughter; she likes him but suspects he is one more penniless foreign gentleman with a story.","predicament":"Someone doubts a suitor's fine manners, fearing they mean debts rather than fortune."},
|
||||
{"chunk":168,"story":22,"summary":"He invites her to dine and takes her through a dark door into a hidden restaurant's crowded back yard.","predicament":"Someone is taken somewhere impressive by a suitor whose means they cannot account for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":169,"story":22,"summary":"He excuses himself, and the whole company applauds and calls his name while she sits dazzled among the fine guests.","predicament":"Someone sees their companion greeted as a great person by a room full of strangers."},
|
||||
{"chunk":170,"story":22,"summary":"He returns in shirtsleeves to season the dishes at every table; her fear of a penniless nobleman rises fourfold first.","predicament":"Someone's fear of a suitor's grand pretensions peaks just before the truth arrives."},
|
||||
{"chunk":171,"story":22,"summary":"He tells her he is the restaurant's famous owner and cook and asks her to marry him; she accepts with relief.","predicament":"Someone learns their suitor is a worker, not a gentleman, and is glad of it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":172,"story":23,"summary":"A clubman is bored by his companions' repeated stories and has been refused for the fifth time by the woman he courts.","predicament":"Someone's days are identical and the one thing they want keeps being refused."},
|
||||
{"chunk":173,"story":23,"summary":"Strolling out, the clubman is accosted by a man from the loafing corner of thieves, and gladly goes aside to talk.","predicament":"Someone starved of novelty welcomes an approach that anyone else would avoid."},
|
||||
{"chunk":174,"story":23,"summary":"The stranger announces himself a burglar and confidence man, and asks the clubman what is wrong with the way he dresses.","predicament":"Someone asks a stranger for the one expertise they lack, offering candour in exchange."},
|
||||
{"chunk":175,"story":23,"summary":"The clubman itemises every fault of the burglar's expensive outfit, and the burglar demands more of the criticism.","predicament":"Someone hears their own faults catalogued and asks for the rest of the list."},
|
||||
{"chunk":176,"story":23,"summary":"Offered his host's tailor, the burglar boasts of a robbery and lays the clubman's own watch and pocketbook on the table.","predicament":"Someone proves their trust by returning what they had already taken from the person trusting them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":177,"story":23,"summary":"Introduced at the club as a burglar and disbelieved, the stranger holds the whole table with an account of the West.","predicament":"Someone brings an outsider among their set and the outsider outshines all of them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":178,"story":23,"summary":"Before leaving, the stranger tells the clubman he is the real thing and promises to return the favour some day.","predicament":"Someone's help is repaid with an offer they may never be able to use."},
|
||||
{"chunk":179,"story":23,"summary":"At lunch the clubman talks only of ranches and says he is going West; the woman who refused him says she will come.","predicament":"Someone stops asking for what they wanted, and is given it at once."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":180,"story":24,"summary":"An out-of-work actress darns stockings in a cheap hotel above the theatre district, wanting only to be back on a stage.","predicament":"Someone out of work waits in cheap lodgings for the only work they want."},
|
||||
{"chunk":181,"story":24,"summary":"The hotel is full of resting players besieging managers for next season, and she wonders aloud where her old friend is.","predicament":"Someone among many in the same trade waits, with all of them chasing the same few places."},
|
||||
{"chunk":182,"story":24,"summary":"Her friend's act was throwing a garter to the audience nightly; after two years she quit for a village on the shore.","predicament":"Someone abandons a profitable performance because of what it required them to be."},
|
||||
{"chunk":183,"story":24,"summary":"The friend arrives travel-stained and agitated, drops her bag, and says she has come straight up to talk.","predicament":"Someone returns abruptly from the life they left, upset and not yet saying why."},
|
||||
{"chunk":184,"story":24,"summary":"She says she left the stage sick of the life, and above all of the men the work forced her to meet.","predicament":"Someone leaves good work because of what they must endure from the people around it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":185,"story":24,"summary":"She describes the suppers, the leering men and the middling actress who hangs on for the chance that never comes.","predicament":"Someone knows they will never rise, and keeps at it anyway for want of a better hope."},
|
||||
{"chunk":186,"story":24,"summary":"She took a room by the sea, met a young clergyman lodging there, and within a month they were engaged.","predicament":"Someone starting a new life quickly finds the respectable future they thought impossible."},
|
||||
{"chunk":187,"story":24,"summary":"She hides her stage past; the landlady tells her he treasures a keepsake of an unhappy love in a locked box.","predicament":"Someone hiding their own past learns the person they love keeps a locked one."},
|
||||
{"chunk":188,"story":24,"summary":"Questioned, he says his earlier love was ideal: a woman he never met, seen from a distance, far above him.","predicament":"Someone questions a partner about an old attachment and is given an answer too good to doubt."},
|
||||
{"chunk":189,"story":24,"summary":"His answer raises him in her eyes; then, left alone with his forgotten keys, she opens the drawer out of curiosity.","predicament":"Someone's admiration for another leads them to look at the one thing kept from them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":190,"story":24,"summary":"One look inside the box sends her packing; she pays the landlady, declares all men alike, and takes the next train.","predicament":"Someone discovers the truth in a keepsake and ends everything without saying what they saw."},
|
||||
{"chunk":191,"story":25,"summary":"Outsiders hold cheap and lurid ideas about stage people, while privately practising gestures in front of their own mirrors.","predicament":"People look down on a trade they secretly wish they were fit for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":192,"story":25,"summary":"A performer has toured four years with a mixed act, working to the approval of the musicians below the stage.","predicament":"Someone works a trade for years, competent and unremarkable, waiting for the thing that lifts them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":193,"story":25,"summary":"Bored by the whole bill, the performer sits up when a young woman does character songs and impersonations.","predicament":"Someone weary of their own trade is stopped short by one person doing it well."},
|
||||
{"chunk":194,"story":25,"summary":"She exactly fits the part in the sketch he has kept hidden in his trunk, so he calls at her lodgings next day.","predicament":"Someone finds the one person who fits the plan they have kept to themselves for years."},
|
||||
{"chunk":195,"story":25,"summary":"He reads her the sketch; she names its weak points and he accepts every change without argument.","predicament":"Someone offers their guarded work and finds it improved by the person they offered it to."},
|
||||
{"chunk":196,"story":25,"summary":"She asks his salary, names her lower one, and says she works for money and means to save for a country home.","predicament":"Someone states plainly that they are in this for money, before agreeing to anything."},
|
||||
{"chunk":197,"story":25,"summary":"She insists the partnership be strictly business with no nonsense; he agrees and describes his own dream of a quiet house.","predicament":"Two people agree to work together on the condition that nothing personal enters it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":198,"story":25,"summary":"The pair cut, rewrite and rehearse the sketch through every known improvement until it is ready.","predicament":"Two people grind a shared piece of work into shape over many months."},
|
||||
{"chunk":199,"story":25,"summary":"The act uses a real revolver and a live cartridge in a melodrama of a ranch, a theft and a jealous woman.","predicament":"Two people build their living on a performance that requires one of them to shoot accurately."},
|
||||
{"chunk":200,"story":25,"summary":"In the story the ranch owner dies, a fortune vanishes, and the woman is convinced her lover is the thief.","predicament":"Someone concludes the person they love has robbed them, on the evidence of who was there."},
|
||||
{"chunk":201,"story":25,"summary":"At the climax she fires through a rival's photograph; the bullet strikes a hidden spring and the missing fortune appears.","predicament":"Someone aims a shot to prove mercy, and hits the thing that clears the accused."},
|
||||
{"chunk":202,"story":25,"summary":"The act triumphs and books at five hundred a week; she asks him inside to hear a proposal that will cut their expenses.","predicament":"Someone proposes an arrangement to another on the grounds that it will save them both money."},
|
||||
{"chunk":203,"story":25,"summary":"For two years the act tours to full houses, the pair known everywhere as quiet, hard workers who go straight home.","predicament":"Two people build savings and a spotless name by never once being seen to enjoy themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":204,"story":25,"summary":"Nervous at a first night, she fires wide and the bullet enters her partner's neck; the audience applauds the supposed comedy.","predicament":"Someone's nerve fails once at the exact thing they have done perfectly a thousand times."},
|
||||
{"chunk":205,"story":25,"summary":"A fellow performer tells the wounded man that his partner is frantic with love for him; he calls it impossible.","predicament":"Someone is told that the person nearest them loves them, and cannot believe it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":206,"story":25,"summary":"He insists it is too late, and reveals that the two of them have been quietly married for two years.","predicament":"Someone hears that love has arrived and answers that the arrangement was settled long ago."},
|
||||
{"chunk":207,"story":26,"summary":"A quarter of the city gathers exiles from the south, who plot, raise funds and buy arms from a favourite cafe.","predicament":"Exiles gather in one place to plan a return that most of them will never make."},
|
||||
{"chunk":208,"story":26,"summary":"A general arrives by liner from the south, short, grand and important, and makes for the quarter where his countrymen gather.","predicament":"Someone arrives in a strange city on an errand for their country, conspicuous in every way."},
|
||||
{"chunk":209,"story":26,"summary":"He takes rooms at a hotel whose blond landlady charms him, and reminds himself that his country claims his devotion.","predicament":"Someone on an errand is distracted at once by what they find where they lodge."},
|
||||
{"chunk":210,"story":26,"summary":"Bewildered by traffic, the general is marked by two street predators, and the smoother of them rescues him and gains his trust.","predicament":"Someone helpless in a strange place is helped by the person planning to rob them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":211,"story":26,"summary":"Over bottles the general loudly confides that he carries drafts for twenty-five thousand to buy rifles for a revolution.","predicament":"Someone announces a secret errand and its funds to a stranger at the top of their voice."},
|
||||
{"chunk":212,"story":26,"summary":"The stranger promises to introduce him to the Secretary of War, and tells him to keep the drafts in his pocket.","predicament":"Someone is promised access to a great official by the one person who has befriended them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":213,"story":26,"summary":"The stranger telephones a confidence man and casts him as the Secretary of War for the following afternoon.","predicament":"Someone arranges for an accomplice to impersonate the authority their mark is expecting."},
|
||||
{"chunk":214,"story":26,"summary":"On the way out the stranger insults the landlady with a joke she overhears; the false official then plays his part.","predicament":"Someone insults, in passing, the one person able to ruin their scheme."},
|
||||
{"chunk":215,"story":26,"summary":"Cases are filled with bricks for the sale, and the landlady takes the general aside to ask about his new friend.","predicament":"Someone about to be cheated is taken aside by the person who sees through it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":216,"story":26,"summary":"The general buys the hotel's furnishings and lease with the money and proposes to the landlady; the swindler chokes with rage.","predicament":"Someone abandons the cause they were entrusted with for a comfortable life and a marriage."},
|
||||
{"chunk":217,"story":26,"summary":"The general calls it politics, says war is not nice, and asks whether the swindler has tasted the landlady's cooking.","predicament":"Someone explains away a betrayal as good sense, and recommends the life they chose."},
|
||||
{"chunk":218,"story":27,"summary":"A confidence man follows an old partner's advice and comes to the city, meeting him again on the street.","predicament":"Someone past their best moves to richer ground on a colleague's advice."},
|
||||
{"chunk":219,"story":27,"summary":"The partner insists the city's people beg to be robbed, and proposes they work the town together as in old times.","predicament":"Someone is urged into a scheme by a partner who insists it cannot fail."},
|
||||
{"chunk":220,"story":27,"summary":"He recounts schemes abandoned for being too easy; the newcomer says the people here do not look easy to him.","predicament":"Someone doubts a partner's confidence about a place they do not yet know."},
|
||||
{"chunk":221,"story":27,"summary":"The partner mocks the newcomer's caution, who says he wishes he had stayed with the small sure business at home.","predicament":"Someone doubts the large opportunity and misses the modest certainty they left."},
|
||||
{"chunk":222,"story":27,"summary":"They pool their money, and an acquaintance brings a famous financier to their room to meet men from the West.","predicament":"Two people pool everything they have and are promptly introduced to a great man."},
|
||||
{"chunk":223,"story":27,"summary":"The financier rages that a painting cannot be found and would pay seventy-five thousand; afterwards they stroll past a pawnshop.","predicament":"Someone hears what a rich person desperately wants, moments before appearing to find it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":224,"story":27,"summary":"The partner has seen that very picture in the pawnshop, and next morning they go in to bargain for it.","predicament":"Someone spots the chance that has been placed in front of them and hurries to take it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":225,"story":27,"summary":"They pay two thousand for the picture; the financier has been abroad a month, and the same print sells everywhere for dollars.","predicament":"Two people spend everything on a certainty and find they were the marks all along."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":226,"story":28,"summary":"An artist has only four stock pictures for the spring festival, which shows how vague the occasion is in everyone's mind.","predicament":"People keep an occasion whose meaning none of them can say."},
|
||||
{"chunk":227,"story":28,"summary":"A young carter rises late on the holiday; his blind father sits by the window with a pipe, saying it is fine spring weather.","predicament":"Someone's day of freedom is watched wistfully by a person who cannot leave the room."},
|
||||
{"chunk":228,"story":28,"summary":"The son snaps that he earns the rent and may go out; his mother says the blind man rambles about a hippopotamus.","predicament":"Someone answers a mild wish with anger, and is told the old one is wandering in mind."},
|
||||
{"chunk":229,"story":28,"summary":"He asks the janitor and a policeman what the festival is for and whether anyone has spoken of a hippopotamus.","predicament":"Someone goes about asking others to explain a thing nobody around them understands."},
|
||||
{"chunk":230,"story":28,"summary":"He asks a waiter why the festival exists, gets a joke, and meets the young woman he courts going to church.","predicament":"Someone taking a holiday they do not enjoy looks for a reason in every face they pass."},
|
||||
{"chunk":231,"story":28,"summary":"At church the preacher's theme is new life arising from the old; afterwards he leaves the young woman piqued on a corner.","predicament":"Someone hears the thing they needed said, without knowing they have heard it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":232,"story":28,"summary":"Two blocks on, something stirs in him: the old man meant an ancient war, not an animal, and he takes a car home.","predicament":"Someone suddenly understands what a neglected person had been asking them for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":233,"story":28,"summary":"He takes down the dusty history, roars the question, and reads for an hour while the blind man weeps with joy.","predicament":"Someone resumes a small duty they had dropped, and finds it was everything to another."},
|
||||
{"chunk":234,"story":29,"summary":"On a cold night a preacher on a box pays for beds, fifteen cents a man, for whoever gathers in the line.","predicament":"People with nowhere to sleep line up nightly for a stranger's charity."},
|
||||
{"chunk":235,"story":29,"summary":"Among the bedless stands a discharged coachman, sacked for drunkenness a month before and now in the line with the rest.","predicament":"Someone dismissed for their own fault has fallen further than they can climb back."},
|
||||
{"chunk":236,"story":29,"summary":"A month of whisky has him seeing things; he speaks to the shabby young man beside him about how each came there.","predicament":"Someone at the bottom looks for company and asks a neighbour how they fell."},
|
||||
{"chunk":237,"story":29,"summary":"The other married against his family, lost work and health, and sent his wife away; then a tire falls from a passing car.","predicament":"Someone cut off by their family for a marriage has nothing left and no way to work."},
|
||||
{"chunk":238,"story":29,"summary":"The coachman runs the tire down expecting a coin; the owner asks if he knows a certain family and tells him to get in.","predicament":"Someone hoping for a small tip is instead taken up by a stranger for unexplained reasons."},
|
||||
{"chunk":239,"story":29,"summary":"He is left alone in a gorgeous dark room, where a stuffed owl suddenly raises its wings and shines light from its eyes.","predicament":"Someone brought into a stranger's house is left alone among things they cannot explain."},
|
||||
{"chunk":240,"story":29,"summary":"He hurls a statuette at the owl; the grand host appears, excuses the toy, and returns to the question of the family.","predicament":"Someone's fright breaks their host's property just as the real business begins."},
|
||||
{"chunk":241,"story":29,"summary":"The host promises good fortune; the coachman, hoping for reinstatement, offers to give up drink if taken back.","predicament":"Someone is promised good fortune and asks only for their old place back."},
|
||||
{"chunk":242,"story":29,"summary":"Two women arrive; the elder says she has lost faith in the professor's art and came only because her sister insisted.","predicament":"Someone who has paid for years for hope is close to giving it up."},
|
||||
{"chunk":243,"story":29,"summary":"The professor reveals the oracle about the fifth wheel, promises proof, and asks the coachman if he would go back home.","predicament":"Someone stakes their credibility on producing the person another is desperate to see."},
|
||||
{"chunk":244,"story":29,"summary":"Asked his name, he answers plainly; the professor drags him to the door and kicks him down the steps without explanation.","predicament":"Someone is thrown out the moment they turn out not to be who was wanted."},
|
||||
{"chunk":245,"story":29,"summary":"He walks back to the line; then the maid he courted comes running to him, weeping, saying she came to find him.","predicament":"Someone back at the bottom is found by the person who never stopped looking."},
|
||||
{"chunk":246,"story":29,"summary":"She says the household will take him back, credits the professor, and he asks her for money for the sick man beside him.","predicament":"Someone newly rescued asks for money for the stranger who is worse off."},
|
||||
{"chunk":247,"story":29,"summary":"The sick man proves to be the household's lost son, hunted for three years, and he agrees to go home.","predicament":"Someone missing for years is found beside the person who was being searched for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":248,"story":29,"summary":"On the car home the coachman half-remembers the house of owls and lights, and says he would punch that man's nose.","predicament":"Someone who was thrown out never learns they were the reason everything came right."},
|
||||
{"chunk":249,"story":30,"summary":"A genuine country poem is rejected as artificial, so a city writer composes a false one and they send it to the same editor.","predicament":"The real thing is rejected as a fake, so someone submits a fake instead."},
|
||||
{"chunk":250,"story":30,"summary":"A countryman steps off the ferry with hay in his hair; the crowds glance once, decide he is overdone, and ignore him.","predicament":"Someone genuinely out of place is taken for a bad imitation of themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":251,"story":30,"summary":"A confidence man advises him his rustic get-up is overdone, refuses a card game, and buys him a drink instead.","predicament":"Someone honest is warned by a cheat that their appearance is unconvincing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":252,"story":30,"summary":"He produces nine hundred and fifty dollars; the cheat admires the roll but still says the clothes will never work.","predicament":"Someone shows real money and is complimented on a good prop."},
|
||||
{"chunk":253,"story":30,"summary":"A bartender scoffs at his valise of money, and a news-seller refuses to change his note, calling it stage money.","predicament":"Someone cannot get anyone to take their money, because nobody believes it is theirs."},
|
||||
{"chunk":254,"story":30,"summary":"A gambling tout waves him off as a decoy, and he concludes his clothes are what keep the city from noticing him.","predicament":"Someone is refused everywhere and decides the problem is how they are dressed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":255,"story":30,"summary":"He outfits himself in the latest fashion, steps out at nine, and by half-past eleven has been robbed of everything.","predicament":"Someone made themselves look worth robbing, and immediately was."},
|
||||
{"chunk":256,"story":30,"summary":"The editor praises the city writer's poem as the work of one raised close to nature, and pays for it as usual.","predicament":"A judge praises the imitation for the very quality the real thing was denied."},
|
||||
{"chunk":257,"story":31,"summary":"A man admired as the best-dressed in the city keeps a servant pressing trousers and never wears a pair three hours.","predicament":"Someone's whole standing rests on an appearance that takes constant work to keep."},
|
||||
{"chunk":258,"story":31,"summary":"He vanishes without motive, debt, enemy or woman; two friends travelling abroad hear of a remote mountain monastery.","predicament":"Someone disappears completely, leaving those who knew them no reason at all."},
|
||||
{"chunk":259,"story":31,"summary":"At the monastery they watch the brothers file past and recognise their vanished friend among them.","predicament":"Someone is found living a life nobody who knew them would have predicted."},
|
||||
{"chunk":260,"story":31,"summary":"They confirm it is he, sitting among the shabby brothers, never looking up, eating broth from a coarse bowl.","predicament":"Someone who lived for elegance is seen content among the plainest of things."},
|
||||
{"chunk":261,"story":31,"summary":"He comes serene and happy in a rough robe, greets them easily, and asks whether that waistcoat is the new fashion.","predicament":"Someone found in a new life shows no embarrassment and asks after the old one's fashions."},
|
||||
{"chunk":262,"story":31,"summary":"They beg him to come back; he says he has reached his goal, having found at last a garment that never bags.","predicament":"Someone explains a life-changing choice by a reason nobody else can take seriously."},
|
||||
{"chunk":263,"story":32,"summary":"A travelling swindler takes his holidays in the city, practising a tune in a hall bedroom beside a pistol and a roll of notes.","predicament":"Someone whose trade is deception rests where nobody knows them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":264,"story":32,"summary":"He says women do not specialise in his trade because they are already fully occupied extracting money from men.","predicament":"Someone explains that one group must bargain constantly for what the other simply holds."},
|
||||
{"chunk":265,"story":32,"summary":"He calls a wife's kiss for a jewel the same trade, then tells of a striking country woman and a rich man he met.","predicament":"Someone argues that every exchange of affection for money is the same transaction."},
|
||||
{"chunk":266,"story":32,"summary":"The rich man's one ambition is to be noticed; he has tried gifts, accidents and paying reporters, and got nothing.","predicament":"Someone with money enough to live on cannot buy the one thing they want: notice."},
|
||||
{"chunk":267,"story":32,"summary":"The swindler offers to put him in every paper for a week, and names ten thousand dollars as the price.","predicament":"Someone offers to sell another the attention they have failed to buy honestly."},
|
||||
{"chunk":268,"story":32,"summary":"The plan: a month of showy courtship and terrible love letters, then a desertion and a huge breach of promise suit.","predicament":"Three people contract to stage a betrayal for the publicity the trial will bring."},
|
||||
{"chunk":269,"story":32,"summary":"She coaches him into writing worse love letters, and in a crowded restaurant a process-server hands him the papers publicly.","predicament":"Someone stages their own humiliation in public and is proud of how it looks."},
|
||||
{"chunk":270,"story":32,"summary":"Two hours later the pair return married, leaving behind a railway ticket and two pairs of the rich man's old trousers.","predicament":"Two people hired to stage a courtship carry it through for real and pay nothing."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":271,"story":33,"summary":"Western visitors mope in hotel lobbies; one of them is swept from his companions by the rush hour and backs into a doorway.","predicament":"Someone from far away is separated from their companions and swamped by a crowd."},
|
||||
{"chunk":272,"story":33,"summary":"Everything about him marks where he came from; he suddenly hauls a passing man out of the crowd and strikes him affectionately.","predicament":"Someone greets an old friend in the manner of home, which here looks like assault."},
|
||||
{"chunk":273,"story":33,"summary":"The friend is now a polished city businessman; the visitor accuses him of becoming tame and orders whiskey against his cocktail.","predicament":"Someone finds an old friend remade by the place they settled in, and says so."},
|
||||
{"chunk":274,"story":33,"summary":"At lunch the friend orders delicate dishes and defends the city as comfortable, saying he cannot make himself go back.","predicament":"Someone defends the soft life they chose to a person who knew them hard."},
|
||||
{"chunk":275,"story":33,"summary":"The visitor denounces him as a renegade softened by small drinks; the friend half agrees and repeats that the city is comfortable.","predicament":"Someone is told they have been ruined by comfort and can only agree."},
|
||||
{"chunk":276,"story":33,"summary":"At an elegant dinner the visitor keeps scorning each refinement while quietly watching the room and its diners.","predicament":"Someone mocking a way of life keeps looking at it more closely than they admit."},
|
||||
{"chunk":277,"story":33,"summary":"He admires a woman across the room, muses about selling his ranch, orders two cocktails and says they are on him.","predicament":"Someone who came to scorn a place starts pricing what it would cost to stay."},
|
||||
{"chunk":278,"story":34,"summary":"A speculator corners the flour market, adding two cents to every loaf, and retires with two million dollars.","predicament":"Someone grows rich by taking a little from everyone who cannot avoid buying."},
|
||||
{"chunk":279,"story":34,"summary":"The speculator's easy-tempered son and his intense socialist friend meet again after college, when the son has inherited everything.","predicament":"Someone inherits a fortune and returns to the friend who despises how it was made."},
|
||||
{"chunk":280,"story":34,"summary":"The heir says he wants to pay back the people overcharged for bread; his friend tells him it cannot be done.","predicament":"Someone wanting to undo an inherited wrong is told restitution is impossible."},
|
||||
{"chunk":281,"story":34,"summary":"The heir presses for a way; his friend argues that each penny taken from the poor multiplied a thousandfold in harm.","predicament":"Someone offers money to repair harm and is told money cannot reach it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":282,"story":34,"summary":"As an instance, a small baker was ruined by the price rise, went mad, burned a building and died in an asylum.","predicament":"One person's profit destroyed a small tradesman and everyone who depended on him."},
|
||||
{"chunk":283,"story":34,"summary":"The last item of the instance is the baker's daughter sewing shirts for four dollars a week; she orders the heir out.","predicament":"Someone meets the person their family ruined and is refused even a hearing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":284,"story":34,"summary":"Two months later the watchmaker meets her in furs, haggling over the price of bread: she has married the heir.","predicament":"Someone shut out by an injured person returns and marries them instead."},
|
||||
{"chunk":285,"story":34,"summary":"A reporter says he could not make a funny column of a violinist's story, and hands the details to his writer friend.","predicament":"Someone cannot make the expected joke of a story and gives it to another."},
|
||||
{"chunk":286,"story":34,"summary":"At a wedding twenty years ago the best man climbs the fire escape and begs the bride to run away with him.","predicament":"Someone who lost a rivalry makes a last desperate appeal on the day it is settled."},
|
||||
{"chunk":287,"story":34,"summary":"She scorns him, and as he kisses her hand in farewell the bridegroom walks in on the two of them.","predicament":"Someone refuses an advance and is seen at the worst possible instant."},
|
||||
{"chunk":288,"story":34,"summary":"The bridegroom throws her down and leaves forever; twenty years pass and she keeps the shop and loves him still.","predicament":"Someone is cast off over an innocent moment and waits decades without explanation."},
|
||||
{"chunk":289,"story":34,"summary":"She refuses a suitor because she is still married, lets rooms, and a grey-haired violinist takes the front one.","predicament":"Someone refuses every new offer out of loyalty to a person long vanished."},
|
||||
{"chunk":290,"story":34,"summary":"A second lodger with haunting eyes charms her, and she concludes he is her returned husband, but gives no sign.","predicament":"Someone believes a stranger is the person who left them, and waits to be told."},
|
||||
{"chunk":291,"story":34,"summary":"The violinist declares his love and admits he knows neither his name nor anything before waking in a hospital.","predicament":"Someone offers marriage while admitting they do not know who they are."},
|
||||
{"chunk":292,"story":34,"summary":"She tells him she is married; an hour later the other lodger begs her to forgive the wrong of twenty years.","predicament":"Someone bound by an old vow is asked by two people to choose between them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":293,"story":34,"summary":"He confesses that he struck her husband down that night; she cries out, breaks away and runs upstairs toward the music.","predicament":"Someone learns their long loyalty was to the wrong person, and runs to the right one."},
|
||||
{"chunk":294,"story":35,"summary":"An overworked lawyer parts from his wife in the usual way, recalling his doctor's warning that his brain may give way.","predicament":"Someone worn down by years of work ignores a warning that they will break."},
|
||||
{"chunk":295,"story":35,"summary":"He wakes on a day coach with no memory of who he is, no papers, and three thousand dollars in his pocket.","predicament":"Someone comes to themselves among strangers with money and no idea who they are."},
|
||||
{"chunk":296,"story":35,"summary":"Put on the spot by a friendly traveller, he invents a name and a trade on the strength of the man's own talk.","predicament":"Someone with no identity invents one from whatever is nearest to hand."},
|
||||
{"chunk":297,"story":35,"summary":"The traveller presses his shelf-bottle reform, and hands him a newspaper item about a supposed case of lost memory.","predicament":"Someone hears their own condition dismissed as a fraud by a stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":298,"story":35,"summary":"The item describes a prominent lawyer missing from home, who drew money from his bank and is feared broken by overwork.","predicament":"Someone reads a description of a missing person and defends them without recognising themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":299,"story":35,"summary":"He registers under the invented name and feels a wild sense of freedom, as if just born into the world.","predicament":"Someone cut loose from every obligation finds the feeling exhilarating rather than frightening."},
|
||||
{"chunk":300,"story":35,"summary":"Days of theatres, cabarets and crowds teach him that the city's freedom is held inside unwritten rules.","predicament":"Someone tasting complete liberty discovers it is bounded by rules nobody states."},
|
||||
{"chunk":301,"story":35,"summary":"A man greets him by his real name; he denies it coldly, calls the man a confidence trickster and moves hotels.","predicament":"Someone recognised by a stranger denies their own name and moves on."},
|
||||
{"chunk":302,"story":35,"summary":"A handsome woman stops him in a restaurant, sure of him after fifteen years, and he tells her he has forgotten everything.","predicament":"Someone is claimed by a person from a past they cannot remember."},
|
||||
{"chunk":303,"story":35,"summary":"She asks whether he has ever dared look at white roses since that night, and tells him blissfully that he lies.","predicament":"Someone denying their past is told, happily, by another that the denial is false."},
|
||||
{"chunk":304,"story":35,"summary":"He repeats the invented name until she goes; that night a quiet man leads him to his wife and his physician.","predicament":"Someone holding to an invention is brought face to face with the people they left."},
|
||||
{"chunk":305,"story":35,"summary":"The wife throws herself on him and begs him to say her name; he unwinds her arms and the doctor leads her out.","predicament":"Someone refuses to acknowledge the person who has been searching for them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":306,"story":35,"summary":"The doctor explains his name, his profession and his illness; he answers coolly and admires his wife's hair.","predicament":"Someone is told who they are and treats it as a conversation about a stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":307,"story":35,"summary":"He engages the doctor in confidence, throws the white roses out of the window, and says the cure may happen now.","predicament":"Someone ends a holiday from themselves deliberately, having never lost anything at all."},
|
||||
{"chunk":308,"story":36,"summary":"The narrator disputes the claim that only certain cities can hold a story, and arrives in a quiet southern capital.","predicament":"Someone insists that the dull place everyone dismisses can hold anything."},
|
||||
{"chunk":309,"story":36,"summary":"He arrives in the drizzle, is driven to a renovated hotel by an ancient vehicle, and finds the service slow and courteous.","predicament":"Someone arrives somewhere expecting nothing and finds nothing to contradict them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":310,"story":36,"summary":"A waiter tells him nothing happens after sundown; he walks the streets and finds quiet houses and little else.","predicament":"Someone looks for life in a strange town and is told there is none."},
|
||||
{"chunk":311,"story":36,"summary":"In the lobby he meets a red, pulpy loafer with a blabbing lip whom he recognises at once as a type he detests.","predicament":"Someone instantly dislikes a stranger who is determined to be their friend."},
|
||||
{"chunk":312,"story":36,"summary":"The loafer apologises for spitting near him, and within four minutes has made a friend of him and dragged him to the bar.","predicament":"Someone is annexed as a friend by a person they cannot easily shake off."},
|
||||
{"chunk":313,"story":36,"summary":"The loafer boasts of ancestry and of his wife's income, shows a handful of silver, and the clerk offers to eject him.","predicament":"Someone lives on money that plainly is not theirs, and boasts about it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":314,"story":36,"summary":"He declines to complain, asks what the town offers a stranger, and explains his errand to sign a local contributor.","predicament":"Someone tolerates a nuisance rather than take a hand in getting rid of them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":315,"story":36,"summary":"Next morning he meets an ancient hack driver in a remarkable old military coat, patched with twine where its braid had been.","predicament":"Someone keeps the ruins of a fine thing repaired with whatever comes to hand."},
|
||||
{"chunk":316,"story":36,"summary":"The coat keeps one yellow horn button and is tied shut with string; the carriage is as old as the coat.","predicament":"Someone's whole means of earning is held together by makeshift repairs."},
|
||||
{"chunk":317,"story":36,"summary":"He names the address; the driver first bars his way with suspicion, then presses him eagerly into the carriage.","predicament":"Someone asking to visit a household is questioned closely by the person guarding it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":318,"story":36,"summary":"At the house the driver demands two dollars instead of fifty cents, insisting not that it is right but that he needs it.","predicament":"Someone overcharges a stranger and admits it, saying only that they must have the money."},
|
||||
{"chunk":319,"story":36,"summary":"He pays with a torn and patched dollar, and is received in a bare, decayed mansion by a frail, white-haired lady.","predicament":"Someone of old family receives a visitor with dignity in a house stripped of everything."},
|
||||
{"chunk":320,"story":36,"summary":"Charmed by her talk and seeing her poverty, he cannot speak of rates, and sets the business for the next afternoon.","predicament":"Someone sent to strike a hard bargain finds they cannot raise the subject."},
|
||||
{"chunk":321,"story":36,"summary":"She answers his platitude about dull towns by saying it is in the still places that things happen.","predicament":"Someone quietly contradicts a visitor's certainty that nothing happens where they live."},
|
||||
{"chunk":322,"story":36,"summary":"She lists cruelties she has seen near and far, then answers a knock at the back and returns brighter, offering tea.","predicament":"Someone shows that the quiet place is as cruel as anywhere, then goes to answer a knock."},
|
||||
{"chunk":323,"story":36,"summary":"She sends a small servant out with that same torn dollar; a man's voice and a scuffle follow, and the tea is withdrawn.","predicament":"Someone's small store of money is taken from them by force in the next room."},
|
||||
{"chunk":324,"story":36,"summary":"The driver says she will not starve, that she has resources; the visitor wires his magazine a lie to raise her rate.","predicament":"Someone lies to their employer to get a poor person paid more than they asked."},
|
||||
{"chunk":325,"story":36,"summary":"That evening the loafer slaps down the same torn and patched dollar at the bar, and the visitor recognises it.","predicament":"Someone sees the money they gave away turn up in the hands of a wastrel."},
|
||||
{"chunk":326,"story":36,"summary":"She faints after signing the contract; the doctor calls it starvation, and names her as the loafer's wife.","predicament":"Someone is starving inside a marriage that everyone around them can see."},
|
||||
{"chunk":327,"story":36,"summary":"The doctor says the husband takes even what her old servant gives her; the visitor advances her fifty dollars anyway.","predicament":"Someone gives money to a person they know will be robbed of it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":328,"story":36,"summary":"The driver's last horn button is gone; two hours later the loafer is found dead in a street after a violent struggle.","predicament":"A person everyone despised is found dead, and nobody can find a good word."},
|
||||
{"chunk":329,"story":36,"summary":"The dead hand drops a yellow horn button; the visitor pockets it and, leaving town, throws it into the river.","predicament":"Someone finds proof of who killed a hated man and quietly destroys it."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":330,"story":37,"summary":"From a rooftop the people below look like insects, and the watcher's mind expands to the immensity of the universe.","predicament":"Someone high above others finds it easy to think them insignificant."},
|
||||
{"chunk":331,"story":37,"summary":"A candy-store clerk earning six dollars a week is courted by the man who keeps the smallest store in the city.","predicament":"Someone with nothing is courted by another with almost as little."},
|
||||
{"chunk":332,"story":37,"summary":"She teases him daily about the size of his store, and lives herself in a room barely wider than her arms.","predicament":"Someone mocks another's smallness while living no larger themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":333,"story":37,"summary":"A second suitor arrives at her boarding house, stuffed with facts and figures which he uses to dominate any table.","predicament":"Someone courts another by displaying knowledge instead of affection."},
|
||||
{"chunk":334,"story":37,"summary":"The pair stop at the little store for chewing gum before going up to see the view, and she teases him again.","predicament":"Someone is shown their rival in front of them, and makes a joke of it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":335,"story":37,"summary":"On the roof the philosopher calls the people below crawling insects; she says they are folks and asks to go down.","predicament":"Someone is shown a grand view and finds the people in it more real than the view."},
|
||||
{"chunk":336,"story":37,"summary":"He presses on about the smallness of human affairs and the distance of the stars; she says she is afraid up here.","predicament":"Someone tries to impress another by making everything they care about seem small."},
|
||||
{"chunk":337,"story":37,"summary":"A meteor blazes over the roof; she screams, demands to be taken down, and vanishes outside the door below.","predicament":"Someone's display of grandeur frightens off the person it was meant to win."},
|
||||
{"chunk":338,"story":38,"summary":"A street runs north through grandeur and antique shops into a mediaeval gloom before diving into a tunnel.","predicament":"A place holds the leavings of grander lives and is passed through by everyone."},
|
||||
{"chunk":339,"story":38,"summary":"A restaurant keeper of half-noble descent works by day and walks the city by night in search of mysteries.","predicament":"Someone of small means gives themselves the role of a great benefactor."},
|
||||
{"chunk":340,"story":38,"summary":"He carries cards good for meals at his own place, and finds a melancholy young man flinging silver into the street.","predicament":"Someone whose only wealth is what they can give away goes looking for someone to help."},
|
||||
{"chunk":341,"story":38,"summary":"He takes the young man's arm and leads him to a park bench to learn what drives him to such waste.","predicament":"Someone sees another destroying what they have and stops them to ask why."},
|
||||
{"chunk":342,"story":38,"summary":"He explains that he studies people and seeks to relieve distress in city streets, and invites the young man's confidence.","predicament":"Someone offers help in grand terms to a stranger who has not asked for it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":343,"story":38,"summary":"The young man works in a harness shop; the owner's daughter will go to whichever man answers his riddle first.","predicament":"Someone's chance at marriage is made to depend on a foolish test set by another."},
|
||||
{"chunk":344,"story":38,"summary":"The riddle is what kind of hen lays the longest, and the young man asks the would-be benefactor to answer it.","predicament":"Someone's whole future turns on a trivial question they cannot answer."},
|
||||
{"chunk":345,"story":38,"summary":"The benefactor cannot solve it and, humiliated, presses one of his meal cards on the young man as they part.","predicament":"Someone who promised to help anyone finds they cannot, and gives what they have."},
|
||||
{"chunk":346,"story":38,"summary":"Next morning the rival fails; reading the card in his pocket, the young man answers a dead one and wins the party.","predicament":"Someone's answer comes by accident from the help that seemed to be worthless."},
|
||||
{"chunk":347,"story":39,"summary":"A rich child of five loses the cheap rag-doll she loves, and the whole household cannot find it.","predicament":"Someone grieves for a worthless thing that all their family's money cannot replace."},
|
||||
{"chunk":348,"story":39,"summary":"Expensive toys and doctors fail to console her; parents and servants are helpless as the season comes on.","predicament":"Someone's money buys every substitute and none of them is the thing wanted."},
|
||||
{"chunk":349,"story":39,"summary":"The terrier had buried the doll in a corner of the lawn; meanwhile a decently drunk tramp walks the neighbouring street.","predicament":"The thing everyone is hunting lies in plain reach of a passing stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":350,"story":39,"summary":"The tramp digs out the doll, takes it into a saloon and earns drinks by addressing it as his lady friend.","predicament":"Someone with nothing finds a prop that earns them attention and drink."},
|
||||
{"chunk":351,"story":39,"summary":"Three local toughs read of a hundred-dollar reward for the doll, and one offers the tramp fifty cents for it.","predicament":"Someone holding something valuable is offered a pittance by people who know its worth."},
|
||||
{"chunk":352,"story":39,"summary":"The tramp laughs and refuses, saying money cannot buy her; he is drunk on his first success as a performer.","predicament":"Someone refuses a good price because what they hold has given them something better."},
|
||||
{"chunk":353,"story":39,"summary":"The toughs show him the advertisement; he agrees to claim the reward, and they follow him armed to the gate.","predicament":"Someone is helped toward a prize by people who mean to take it from them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":354,"story":39,"summary":"He rings, the doll is restored, and the child screams hatred at the ragged man who brought her treasure back.","predicament":"Someone's one good act is received with disgust by the person it was for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":355,"story":39,"summary":"A secretary counts him a hundred dollars and has him shown out, while the three wait beyond the gate.","predicament":"Someone receives what they came for and is walked toward the people waiting to take it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":356,"story":39,"summary":"At the door the holly and the harp music stir old memories, and he insists on paying his compliments to the lady.","predicament":"Someone far fallen is reminded of the manners of the life they came from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":357,"story":39,"summary":"The lady receives him, wine is brought, and he begins the old family salutation before his memory fails.","predicament":"Someone tries to perform a courtesy from a past they can no longer fully recall."},
|
||||
{"chunk":358,"story":39,"summary":"As he is shown out she orders the motor car brought round to take him wherever he wishes to go.","predicament":"Someone is saved from waiting danger by a kindness that was never meant as rescue."},
|
||||
{"chunk":359,"story":40,"summary":"The city swarms with rich men in search of people to relieve, and the poor hide from their attentions.","predicament":"People with more than they need hunt for someone to receive their generosity."},
|
||||
{"chunk":360,"story":40,"summary":"A retired magnate declares that squaring one old ten thousand dollars would do the trick; he rose from a breaker boy.","predicament":"Someone rich decides one specific old debt is what stands between them and peace."},
|
||||
{"chunk":361,"story":40,"summary":"Rich beyond counting, he builds a palace and begins to worry about his soul's salvation.","predicament":"Someone with more money than they can use starts worrying about how they got it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":362,"story":40,"summary":"His million to a charity is misreported and his laboratory gift is built as a lavatory, and he is given a degree.","predicament":"Someone's large gifts go astray and bring them no credit at all."},
|
||||
{"chunk":363,"story":40,"summary":"Overhearing professors mock him, he wearies of giving on a large scale and decides to see gratitude himself.","predicament":"Someone giving generously overhears what the receivers really think of them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":364,"story":40,"summary":"A district boss corners him and says the poor there belong to him, and warns him to keep to his own part of town.","predicament":"Someone offering charity is told the people they meant to help are already spoken for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":365,"story":40,"summary":"He doubles his donations, buys a young woman a stage part, and still finds no relief; his sister and daughter keep his house.","predicament":"Someone tries every way of giving money away and none of it eases them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":366,"story":40,"summary":"The daughter, plain, loud and healthy, looks out of a window and gives her heart to the grocer's young man.","predicament":"Someone with every advantage falls for a person who has not noticed them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":367,"story":40,"summary":"She watches the confident young driver three days running and then consults the housemaid who is her friend.","predicament":"Someone plans an approach to a person they have only watched from a window."},
|
||||
{"chunk":368,"story":40,"summary":"She borrows a cap and apron, passes as a maid, and he stops for her whistling and gives his name.","predicament":"Someone conceals their wealth to be liked for something other than money."},
|
||||
{"chunk":369,"story":40,"summary":"They whistle duets and he talks of sixteen dollars a week and flats, while she never counts on her father's money.","predicament":"Two people plan a life on wages one of them could cover in an afternoon."},
|
||||
{"chunk":370,"story":40,"summary":"Raised to eighteen a week, he tells her to untie the apron strings, and they count up what she can do.","predicament":"Two people persuade themselves that a small wage is enough to marry on."},
|
||||
{"chunk":371,"story":40,"summary":"The old debt was a hillside bought for a trifle from a miner and sold a month later for ten thousand.","predicament":"Someone's fortune began with a bargain that ruined the person who sold it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":372,"story":40,"summary":"Detectives trace the heir to the grocer's man; the magnate pays him the ten thousand as another man's agent.","predicament":"Someone makes restitution while hiding that they were the one who took it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":373,"story":40,"summary":"Invited to call and meet the daughter, the young man says he is engaged to a parlour maid and must deliver his goods.","predicament":"Someone refuses an opening into a higher life because they are already promised."},
|
||||
{"chunk":374,"story":40,"summary":"She confesses she is the heiress; he says her father will refuse, and she says she will marry him tonight.","predicament":"Someone confesses the fortune they hid, and proposes to act before it can matter."},
|
||||
{"chunk":375,"story":40,"summary":"The father's car runs the cab down; two years later he refuses every charity and cuts salaries to save money.","predicament":"Someone who gave money away freely stops the moment they have an heir."},
|
||||
{"chunk":376,"story":40,"summary":"He shows the mark his grandson's new tooth made, and raises the price of vinegar three cents instead of two.","predicament":"Someone's new devotion to one person makes them harder on everyone else."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":377,"story":41,"summary":"A young woman works the cashier's cage at a crowded downtown restaurant, taking money through an arch in a brass screen.","predicament":"Someone works where everyone must pass them and pay."},
|
||||
{"chunk":378,"story":41,"summary":"She counts change, deflects proposals and rates every customer at once, and every man who pays adores her.","predicament":"Someone's position makes them the object of everyone's flattery all day long."},
|
||||
{"chunk":379,"story":41,"summary":"The young men trade compliments and hints of presents, and one broker proposes to her more often than he eats.","predicament":"Someone receives offers so constantly that none of them can be taken seriously."},
|
||||
{"chunk":380,"story":41,"summary":"Her talk runs on in one stream of sums, refusals, appointments and rebukes as the queue pays and passes.","predicament":"Someone handles money and flattery in the same breath, all day, by pure habit."},
|
||||
{"chunk":381,"story":41,"summary":"An old banker collapses outside, is carried in, and he and his wife take to the beautiful cashier who tended him.","predicament":"Someone's kindness in an emergency wins them the notice of people far above them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":382,"story":41,"summary":"She resigns to be adopted, saying she will miss the cage, and money is poured out to polish her.","predicament":"Someone leaves the only work they know for a life that must be taught to them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":383,"story":41,"summary":"At a charity bazaar an earl approaches her booth's brass wicket; she answers him as a cashier would, and faints.","predicament":"Someone's old habit answers for them at the moment their new life is decided."},
|
||||
{"chunk":384,"story":42,"summary":"A magazine editor, content with his life, wanders into a small park on a spring afternoon.","predicament":"Someone comfortable and well pleased with themselves takes a walk."},
|
||||
{"chunk":385,"story":42,"summary":"Pleased by his sales, his salary and his wife's new devotion to singing, he is caught by the sleeve by a shabby acquaintance.","predicament":"Someone at their most satisfied is stopped in the street by a friend who has failed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":386,"story":42,"summary":"The shabby man is a fiction writer ruined by a loss, whose stories the editor returns with careful letters of explanation.","predicament":"Someone poor keeps submitting work to a prosperous friend who keeps refusing it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":387,"story":42,"summary":"On a park bench the writer calls it his office and insists he will force the magazines to admit his work is good.","predicament":"Someone with nothing left insists that the people rejecting them are wrong."},
|
||||
{"chunk":388,"story":42,"summary":"The editor praises the plot and style, then says he spoils every climax with flat and drab strokes.","predicament":"Someone is told the exact thing they believe in is what ruins their work."},
|
||||
{"chunk":389,"story":42,"summary":"They argue whether a mother whose child is taken speaks in grand words or in her ordinary muddled ones.","predicament":"Two people argue about how a person really behaves at the worst moment of their life."},
|
||||
{"chunk":390,"story":42,"summary":"The editor holds that deep emotion calls out a fitting and elevated expression, learned from the stage and from life.","predicament":"Someone defends a theory about others' feelings that neither of them has tested."},
|
||||
{"chunk":391,"story":42,"summary":"The writer quotes his own banal lines, and asks whether the editor would buy the story if it were proved true to life.","predicament":"Someone asks whether proof would change the mind that has judged them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":392,"story":42,"summary":"The writer proposes to prove it from life with his own wife, saying he is down to his last dollar.","predicament":"Someone desperate offers to test a theory on the person closest to them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":393,"story":42,"summary":"The scheme is a false note saying he has run off; the editor calls it cruel and the writer presses him.","predicament":"Someone proposes to wound another to win an argument, and calls it harmless."},
|
||||
{"chunk":394,"story":42,"summary":"They climb to the bare flat, where he finds a note his wife left that morning and reads it aloud.","predicament":"Someone setting a trap finds the real thing has already been sprung on them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":395,"story":42,"summary":"The wives have gone on the road together; the writer declaims in grand style and the editor blurts out slang.","predicament":"Two people are struck by the same blow and each answers it in the other's manner."},
|
||||
{"chunk":396,"story":43,"summary":"Two rival gangs observe strict politeness in a saloon while each watches the other in the mirror.","predicament":"People bound by a feud share a room and keep their manners until they cannot."},
|
||||
{"chunk":397,"story":43,"summary":"The etiquette breaks, one man is knifed in the dark, and the wounded man refuses to name who did it.","predicament":"Someone injured refuses to name their attacker, meaning to settle it themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":398,"story":43,"summary":"The saloon keeper has told the police, so the knifer must stay hidden until the fixer returns from abroad.","predicament":"Someone must stay out of sight until the one person who can protect them returns."},
|
||||
{"chunk":399,"story":43,"summary":"A week of hiding becomes unbearable and he goes to an unfamiliar late resort where nobody knows him.","predicament":"Someone in hiding risks one night out where they hope not to be recognised."},
|
||||
{"chunk":400,"story":43,"summary":"The resort's distinction is that women may smoke there, which makes its proprietor twenty years ahead of his time.","predicament":"A place draws people by permitting what everywhere else forbids."},
|
||||
{"chunk":401,"story":43,"summary":"A girl comes in alone, sits opposite him, lights a cigarette and smiles at him, and both are done for.","predicament":"Two strangers decide about each other in the space of a single look."},
|
||||
{"chunk":402,"story":43,"summary":"Each at once begins to pretend; she explains her cigarette by an aunt, and he tells her to stop it.","predicament":"Two people who have just met begin immediately to improve their own histories."},
|
||||
{"chunk":403,"story":43,"summary":"She gives a fine name, says she binds books and works overtime, and only came in for a smoke.","predicament":"Someone explains their presence somewhere improper as innocently as they can."},
|
||||
{"chunk":404,"story":43,"summary":"He offers to walk her home and invents a rich father and a seat on the exchange to recommend himself.","predicament":"Someone invents a grand family to make themselves acceptable to a person they like."},
|
||||
{"chunk":405,"story":43,"summary":"At one the doors are locked and the drinks become illegal, which sweetens everything in the room.","predicament":"People value an ordinary pleasure more once it is forbidden."},
|
||||
{"chunk":406,"story":43,"summary":"He asks whether her story was true, believes her, and asks her to be his steady girl.","predicament":"Someone asks the person they want for a plain account of who they are."},
|
||||
{"chunk":407,"story":43,"summary":"They arrange a visit on Thursday; then blows fall on the street door and the lights go out.","predicament":"Two people making plans are interrupted by the thing one of them was hiding from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":408,"story":43,"summary":"The guests escape by a ladder; she stops to ask again whether he really likes her, and they are left behind.","predicament":"Someone loses their chance to escape by stopping to ask for reassurance."},
|
||||
{"chunk":409,"story":43,"summary":"A policeman finds the two, takes off his hat, names him as the man who knifed another, and orders him along.","predicament":"Someone in hiding is recognised by an officer who means to take them in."},
|
||||
{"chunk":410,"story":43,"summary":"She hurls herself at the officer, claims the man as hers, throws money on the table and names the bribe he takes.","predicament":"Someone saves another by revealing exactly what they are and what the officer is."},
|
||||
{"chunk":411,"story":43,"summary":"Outside he hands the money back; she says he will not want to see her, and tells him what she had hoped to be.","predicament":"Someone gives up the person they wanted rather than be taken for what they are."},
|
||||
{"chunk":412,"story":43,"summary":"He confesses his own lies, takes her two blocks to a clergyman's door and rings the bell.","predicament":"Someone answers another's confession by marrying them on the spot."},
|
||||
{"chunk":413,"story":44,"summary":"The essay distinguishes fortune, adventure and chance, and names the venturer as one who watches the roadside.","predicament":"Someone travelling toward a goal cares more for what lies beside the road."},
|
||||
{"chunk":414,"story":44,"summary":"A clubman walks out on a familiar story, craving a turn of events whose ending he cannot already foresee.","predicament":"Someone knows the end of every road available to them and wants one they do not."},
|
||||
{"chunk":415,"story":44,"summary":"He wanders an hour, declines his favourite hotel as no venture, and decides to dine somewhere doubtful instead.","predicament":"Someone deliberately chooses discomfort in the hope of being surprised."},
|
||||
{"chunk":416,"story":44,"summary":"He finds not a penny in thirteen pockets, and a stranger nearby admits he has just done the same.","predicament":"Someone with money in the bank and none in their pocket meets another in the same case."},
|
||||
{"chunk":417,"story":44,"summary":"The stranger proposes they dine expensively and match his two pennies to see who faces the bill.","predicament":"Two strangers agree to run a risk together for the sake of the outcome."},
|
||||
{"chunk":418,"story":44,"summary":"The stranger explains he seeks adventures whose conclusion he cannot predict, and would bet without seeing his hand.","predicament":"Someone wants to act without being able to guess what will follow."},
|
||||
{"chunk":419,"story":44,"summary":"He says civilisation has posted signboards on every path, and that even ruin now has a known address.","predicament":"Someone complains that every risk available to them has a predictable end."},
|
||||
{"chunk":420,"story":44,"summary":"His most promising premise, a veiled lady's note in a bazaar, ended with a journalist wanting newspaper work.","predicament":"Someone's most mysterious opening turned out to have an ordinary explanation."},
|
||||
{"chunk":421,"story":44,"summary":"Rapids, cards and strange doorbells all end conventionally; the only certain thing is that nothing is uncertain.","predicament":"Someone has tried every risk they can think of and found each one predictable."},
|
||||
{"chunk":422,"story":44,"summary":"The clubman loses the toss and proposes the other slip away while he holds the check and faces the outcome.","predicament":"Someone loses a wager and arranges for the winner to escape the consequence."},
|
||||
{"chunk":423,"story":44,"summary":"He signs the check, confessing he dines there weekly; the other confesses he owns the hotel.","predicament":"Two people risking everything discover neither was risking anything at all."},
|
||||
{"chunk":424,"story":44,"summary":"The clubman says he is engaged, loves the lady, and dreads the certainty of everything that will follow.","predicament":"Someone loves a person and fears the life with them for being entirely foreseeable."},
|
||||
{"chunk":425,"story":44,"summary":"The hotel owner calls at an unchanging old house and is met warmly by a young woman he has known for years.","predicament":"Someone returns after years to a person and a house that have not changed at all."},
|
||||
{"chunk":426,"story":44,"summary":"She recalls that he never would play a game with rules, and tells him plainly he could have had her.","predicament":"Someone is told by another that the thing they wanted was always available."},
|
||||
{"chunk":427,"story":44,"summary":"He reflects that she and the house offer no surprises; she says she is going to be married soon.","predicament":"Someone left a person for being predictable and finds they are about to be lost."},
|
||||
{"chunk":428,"story":44,"summary":"The clubman sails to escape certainty; the other says he has found the real hazard, having married her yesterday.","predicament":"Someone finds the greatest uncertainty in the very commitment another is fleeing."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":429,"story":45,"summary":"Everyone arriving in the city must fight it at once, with no rounds and no rest, until one of them wins.","predicament":"Everyone who arrives in a new place must contend with it from the first day."},
|
||||
{"chunk":430,"story":45,"summary":"The newcomer must become part of the place or its enemy; two friends from the West arrive together to make their fortunes.","predicament":"Two friends arrive somewhere new, each meaning not to be changed by it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":431,"story":45,"summary":"Four years on, the businessman bustles in to lunch and the artist tells him the city has swallowed and stamped him.","predicament":"Someone tells an old friend that the place has remade them into everyone else."},
|
||||
{"chunk":432,"story":45,"summary":"The businessman shrugs it off, says the place is good enough for him and that it is giving him his share.","predicament":"Someone accused of being changed answers that the change has paid them well."},
|
||||
{"chunk":433,"story":45,"summary":"He lists his eight thousand a year, his introductions, his motor rides and his shows, and asks what the objection is.","predicament":"Someone measures their life by what it buys and cannot see what is meant."},
|
||||
{"chunk":434,"story":45,"summary":"The artist calls the place a leech and a monster, swears it will never take him, and longs for the country he left.","predicament":"Someone declares they will never be changed by what has already changed their friend."},
|
||||
{"chunk":435,"story":45,"summary":"At midnight the artist looks out at the lights, and answers a telegram offering him what he wanted with a refusal.","predicament":"Someone who swore they were unconquered refuses the chance to leave."},
|
||||
{"chunk":436,"story":46,"summary":"A very rich old man, tired of everything money buys, decides to go about the city looking for something new.","predicament":"Someone who can buy anything wants something they cannot pay for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":437,"story":46,"summary":"He dresses plainly and sets out to find someone in trouble to help; across town a young workman leaves his job.","predicament":"Someone sets out to do good to a stranger they have not yet chosen."},
|
||||
{"chunk":438,"story":46,"summary":"A hat cleaner stands at a machine all day for twelve dollars a week, his feet burning and smarting.","predicament":"Someone works long hours in pain for wages that only just keep them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":439,"story":46,"summary":"His happiness is cool metal against his burning feet and a sea story; he stops at a second-hand bookstall.","predicament":"Someone has found exactly the small comfort that makes their day bearable."},
|
||||
{"chunk":440,"story":46,"summary":"The rich man offers to pay for his education, his travels abroad and a business of his own choosing.","predicament":"Someone is offered everything they never asked for by a stranger in the street."},
|
||||
{"chunk":441,"story":46,"summary":"The young man takes him for a swindler and tells him to be off before something happens to him.","predicament":"Someone offered an impossible gift assumes a trick and refuses it rudely."},
|
||||
{"chunk":442,"story":46,"summary":"They fight, are jailed, and in his cell the young man puts his feet on the cold bars and finds a sea story.","predicament":"Someone locked up finds by accident the exact comfort they most wanted."},
|
||||
{"chunk":443,"story":47,"summary":"A man whose sweetheart vanished on her way from Ireland is taken to the seaside, and stops at a palmist's stall.","predicament":"Someone whose promised person has vanished looks for an answer anywhere."},
|
||||
{"chunk":444,"story":47,"summary":"The palmist foretells trouble from a dark man and a fair woman, a voyage, a loss, and luck from a crooked-nosed man.","predicament":"Someone in trouble is given a list of signs to watch for and believes it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":445,"story":47,"summary":"Leaving, he is burned by a stranger's cigar, loses his change in the scuffle, and his hat blows overboard.","predicament":"Someone's run of small disasters begins as soon as they are warned of it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":446,"story":47,"summary":"He counts each mishap as a prophecy fulfilled and insists the reading is coming true before their eyes.","predicament":"Someone fits every ordinary misfortune to the prediction they were given."},
|
||||
{"chunk":447,"story":47,"summary":"They find a long man with a twice-twisted nose and demand his name, testing it against the letters foretold.","predicament":"Someone stops a stranger in the street because they match a promised description."},
|
||||
{"chunk":448,"story":47,"summary":"The stranger asks their excuse for being at large, is given it, and tries to walk away from the pair.","predicament":"Someone tries to escape two strangers who believe they owe them a fortune."},
|
||||
{"chunk":449,"story":47,"summary":"One of them declares he will sit at the stranger's door till morning, since all their luck depends on him.","predicament":"Someone attaches themselves to a stranger they have decided their fortune rests on."},
|
||||
{"chunk":450,"story":47,"summary":"The friend explains the palmist's reading and says it strains friendship to stand by a born fool.","predicament":"Someone stays loyal to a friend whose belief they think is nonsense."},
|
||||
{"chunk":451,"story":47,"summary":"The stranger laughs, takes them for drinks, and explains he walks at night collecting oddities for a book.","predicament":"Someone who collects other people's strangeness is delighted to be taken for a sign."},
|
||||
{"chunk":452,"story":47,"summary":"The believer grows angry that the promised luck has produced nothing but talk, and drinks with red in his eye.","predicament":"Someone's promised good fortune produces only conversation, and they resent it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":453,"story":47,"summary":"He invites them down to his basement for cold fowl, and mentions the green girl in his kitchen by name.","predicament":"Someone hears, in passing, the name of the person they had given up for lost."},
|
||||
{"chunk":454,"story":48,"summary":"A wife has one dollar and eighty-seven cents saved for a Christmas present, in a flat whose rent eats the wages.","predicament":"Someone has saved for months and still cannot afford the gift they intend."},
|
||||
{"chunk":455,"story":48,"summary":"She cries, then stands before the glass, lets her hair fall its full length, and her face goes pale.","predicament":"Someone out of money considers the one thing of value they still own."},
|
||||
{"chunk":456,"story":48,"summary":"The household's two treasures are his inherited watch and her hair; she sells the hair for twenty dollars.","predicament":"Someone sells the one thing they were proud of to buy another a gift."},
|
||||
{"chunk":457,"story":48,"summary":"She buys a plain chain worthy of the watch, curls what is left of her hair, and waits for him.","predicament":"Someone spends everything on a gift and then fears how they will be seen."},
|
||||
{"chunk":458,"story":48,"summary":"He stops inside the door with an unreadable look; she begs him not to mind and explains what she did.","predicament":"Someone confesses a sacrifice and cannot read the face of the person it was for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":459,"story":48,"summary":"He wakes from his trance, holds her, and tells her to unwrap the package to see what startled him.","predicament":"Someone reassures another and then hands over the gift that will explain everything."},
|
||||
{"chunk":460,"story":48,"summary":"The gift is the set of combs she longed for; then he says he sold the watch to buy them.","predicament":"Two people each sold their treasure to buy the other what now cannot be used."},
|
||||
{"chunk":461,"story":48,"summary":"Of all who give gifts, the narrator says, these two who sacrificed their greatest treasures were the wisest.","predicament":"Two people give away what they cannot spare and are counted wise for it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":462,"story":49,"summary":"At midnight in a crowded cafe a stranger takes the vacant chair, and the narrator hopes for a true citizen of the world.","predicament":"Someone hoping to find a rare kind of person sits waiting to be joined."},
|
||||
{"chunk":463,"story":49,"summary":"The stranger talks of every country as familiarly as a garden, impartial to cities, continents and zones alike.","predicament":"Someone claims every place as home and none as theirs in particular."},
|
||||
{"chunk":464,"story":49,"summary":"Against the poet's claim that men cling to their birthplace, this man seems free of it; then the band plays a southern air.","predicament":"Someone appears to have escaped the loyalty that everyone else is bound by."},
|
||||
{"chunk":465,"story":49,"summary":"A young man leaps up cheering the tune and joins the table; the narrator starts to ask where he is from.","predicament":"Someone tests a theory by asking a stranger where they come from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":466,"story":49,"summary":"The traveller bangs the table: a man should not be judged by his post-office address, nor labelled by a section.","predicament":"Someone insists it should not matter where anybody comes from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":467,"story":49,"summary":"He lists rooms and slippers waiting in a dozen countries, and calls pride in one's birthplace a relic.","predicament":"Someone argues that attachment to a birthplace is a weakness to be outgrown."},
|
||||
{"chunk":468,"story":49,"summary":"He denies having any spot he thinks of, calls himself a citizen of the sphere, and goes off through the crowd.","predicament":"Someone denies having any attachment at all, and takes their leave."},
|
||||
{"chunk":469,"story":49,"summary":"A brawl breaks out: the man is fighting someone who slighted the sidewalks of the small town he came from.","predicament":"Someone who denied caring where they came from fights the first person to insult it."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":470,"story":50,"summary":"A wife waits with cooling supper, and greets her husband with a complaint that he apologises to strangers but never to her.","predicament":"Someone waiting at home resents the courtesy another spends on everyone else."},
|
||||
{"chunk":471,"story":50,"summary":"He answers with an insult, and she hurls the supper at him; the two throw the dishes course by course.","predicament":"Two people settle a grievance by throwing what they have at each other."},
|
||||
{"chunk":472,"story":50,"summary":"The duel escalates to the wash basin, and a scream downstairs halts them; the policeman outside decides not to interfere.","predicament":"Two people's regular quarrel is left alone by everyone who hears it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":473,"story":50,"summary":"The landlady's small boy is lost; the boarders exclaim, pair off, and one sets out to scour the city for him.","predicament":"A child's disappearance gives everyone around a reason to act on their own account."},
|
||||
{"chunk":474,"story":50,"summary":"She cannot say when she last saw him; the news of a straying child moves everyone who hears it.","predicament":"Someone raises an alarm without being able to say when the trouble began."},
|
||||
{"chunk":475,"story":50,"summary":"At the window the couple speak of the son they never had, quarrel gently over his name, and she apologises.","predicament":"Two people at war soften when another's loss makes them imagine their own."},
|
||||
{"chunk":476,"story":50,"summary":"They sit arm in arm watching the search, until word comes that the boy was asleep under a bed all along.","predicament":"Two people are brought together by an emergency that turns out to be nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":477,"story":50,"summary":"He mocks the name she chose, the crockery flies again, and the policeman times the quarrel by his watch.","predicament":"Two people's peace lasts only until one of them makes a joke of it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":478,"story":51,"summary":"A landlady shows each room in descending order of price, scorning anyone who confesses they need something cheaper.","predicament":"Someone looking for lodging is judged by how little they can pay."},
|
||||
{"chunk":479,"story":51,"summary":"The cheapest room is a coffin-sized space with a skylight; a very small young woman comes hunting a room.","predicament":"Someone can afford only a space barely big enough to lie down in."},
|
||||
{"chunk":480,"story":51,"summary":"She takes it at two dollars, copies papers at night, and is gay-hearted enough to hear out a lodger's play.","predicament":"Someone living in the poorest room keeps everyone around them cheerful."},
|
||||
{"chunk":481,"story":51,"summary":"The men gather round her on the stoop while two other women sniff; three of them privately court her.","predicament":"Someone popular with everyone is resented by those who are not."},
|
||||
{"chunk":482,"story":51,"summary":"She points out the steady blue star she can see through her skylight and says she has named it herself.","predicament":"Someone shut in a dark place gives a private name to the one thing they can see."},
|
||||
{"chunk":483,"story":51,"summary":"Work fails; she goes hungry from office to office, refuses a proposal in the hall, and crawls up to her room.","predicament":"Someone out of work refuses the offer that would feed them and climbs the stairs alone."},
|
||||
{"chunk":484,"story":51,"summary":"She blows a kiss to the star and says goodbye; next morning the door is forced and an ambulance is called.","predicament":"Someone at the end of their strength says farewell to the only thing that kept them company."},
|
||||
{"chunk":485,"story":51,"summary":"The doctor carries her out like his own dead; the paper names him William Jackson, and says she will recover.","predicament":"Someone is carried out by a stranger who bears the name they invented in the dark."},
|
||||
{"chunk":486,"story":52,"summary":"Two art students from small towns meet, marry, and set up in a small flat with their studies and each other.","predicament":"Two people with talent and little money marry and live on their studies."},
|
||||
{"chunk":487,"story":52,"summary":"They are happy while the money lasts, each studying under an expensive master toward a clear ambition.","predicament":"Two people spend what they have on training toward futures they cannot yet reach."},
|
||||
{"chunk":488,"story":52,"summary":"When the money fails she says she has found a pupil in a splendid house at five dollars a lesson.","predicament":"Someone announces they have found work so that the other need not stop studying."},
|
||||
{"chunk":489,"story":52,"summary":"He protests at her working while he studies; she insists, and from then on both leave the house early.","predicament":"Someone lets another carry the household so that their own work can continue."},
|
||||
{"chunk":490,"story":52,"summary":"She brings home fifteen dollars with stories of the household; he lays down eighteen from a sketch sold to a stranger.","predicament":"Two people each produce money and an account of where it came from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":491,"story":52,"summary":"She comes home with a bandaged hand and a story about spilled rarebit; he asks quietly what time it happened.","predicament":"Someone hides an injury behind a story and is asked one question too many."},
|
||||
{"chunk":492,"story":52,"summary":"She confesses she has been ironing in a laundry; he confesses he has been firing its engine for two weeks.","predicament":"Two people each hid the same humble work from the other to protect them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":493,"story":53,"summary":"At a weekly club dance, a plain young woman always goes escorted by her friend and her friend's fellow.","predicament":"Someone without a partner attends only on the charity of a friend."},
|
||||
{"chunk":494,"story":53,"summary":"She tells her friend not to call for her: she has a gentleman friend of her own coming to escort her.","predicament":"Someone who has always been pitied announces they no longer need the favour."},
|
||||
{"chunk":495,"story":53,"summary":"The escort proves tall, dark-curled and graceful, quite unlike the club's muscular young men, and she leads him round proudly.","predicament":"Someone arrives with a companion who plainly outshines everyone in the room."},
|
||||
{"chunk":496,"story":53,"summary":"Her evening is a triumph, but he takes the honours, and waltzes twice with the leader's own partner.","predicament":"Someone's guest wins the room and then offends the one person who matters."},
|
||||
{"chunk":497,"story":53,"summary":"The club's leader, told the visitor is unknown to the district's chief, stops him on the floor and asks where he lives.","predicament":"Someone in charge questions a stranger nobody can vouch for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":498,"story":53,"summary":"Neither will yield; the leader demands proof of the visitor's name and then insults him outright.","predicament":"Two people who cannot share a room force the question of who belongs."},
|
||||
{"chunk":499,"story":53,"summary":"The board conducts the visitor to the back room where quarrels are settled, and word reaches her of it.","predicament":"Someone's companion is quietly taken away to be dealt with by the others."},
|
||||
{"chunk":500,"story":53,"summary":"She bursts in and snatches the long knife from her escort's raised arm before it can be used.","predicament":"Someone stops the person they brought from doing what cannot be forgiven."},
|
||||
{"chunk":501,"story":53,"summary":"She confesses she dressed him in a false name to have an escort at last; the leader offers to take her next week.","predicament":"Someone confesses the pretence that got them noticed, and is taken seriously at last."},
|
||||
{"chunk":502,"story":54,"summary":"A man in search of answers sets out to learn what exactly is meant by the type called a man about town.","predicament":"Someone will not let a vague description rest until they can picture it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":503,"story":54,"summary":"A reporter gives a loose account of the type, and the seeker walks the bright street ignoring everyone else.","predicament":"Someone looking for one particular kind of person passes all the others by."},
|
||||
{"chunk":504,"story":54,"summary":"He asks a barman, who answers in slang, then stops a collector on the sidewalk with the same question.","predicament":"Someone asks everyone they meet the same question and gets a different answer."},
|
||||
{"chunk":505,"story":54,"summary":"A critic defines the type as a man sick with wanting to see and know, who pokes into every new place.","predicament":"Someone hears their quarry described as pure curiosity and impudence."},
|
||||
{"chunk":506,"story":54,"summary":"The critic warms to his portrait; the seeker begs to be shown a real specimen rather than a description.","predicament":"Someone given a perfect description insists on meeting the thing itself."},
|
||||
{"chunk":507,"story":54,"summary":"He refuses dinner to keep hunting, is knocked down crossing the street, and the paper calls him a typical specimen.","predicament":"Someone searching everywhere for a type is finally identified as one themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":508,"story":55,"summary":"Winter is coming and the park sleeper decides his plan: three months of board and lodging on the island prison.","predicament":"Someone with nowhere to go for the winter decides prison is the best available."},
|
||||
{"chunk":509,"story":55,"summary":"He prefers the law to charity, which exacts humiliation, and resolves to dine well and then declare he cannot pay.","predicament":"Someone refuses charity because of what it costs them, and plans a crime instead."},
|
||||
{"chunk":510,"story":55,"summary":"At the glittering restaurant door the head waiter sees his shoes and trousers and he is turned out at once.","predicament":"Someone is refused entry before they can commit the offence they came to commit."},
|
||||
{"chunk":511,"story":55,"summary":"He breaks a window and waits, but the officer will not believe him; he then eats where the food is cheap.","predicament":"Someone confesses to an act and is not believed because nobody behaves that way."},
|
||||
{"chunk":512,"story":55,"summary":"The waiters pitch him onto the pavement; he next tries insulting a young woman in front of a policeman.","predicament":"Someone tries a worse offence after the first attempt fails to get attention."},
|
||||
{"chunk":513,"story":55,"summary":"The young woman takes his arm gladly; he shakes her off, then howls and dances and is excused as a student.","predicament":"Someone behaves as badly as they can and every attempt is taken kindly."},
|
||||
{"chunk":514,"story":55,"summary":"He takes another man's umbrella openly, and the owner apologises and gives it up rather than call the officer.","predicament":"Someone steals in plain sight and the person robbed gives way to them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":515,"story":55,"summary":"At an old church the organ anthem holds him, and he sees with horror what his days have become.","predicament":"Someone hears music from an earlier life and sees clearly what they have become."},
|
||||
{"chunk":516,"story":55,"summary":"He resolves to find work and be somebody; a hand falls on his arm, and the magistrate gives him three months.","predicament":"Someone decides to change their life and is punished the instant they do."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":517,"story":56,"summary":"Three penniless friends eat on credit at a cheap restaurant whose owner lets them pay or not as they can.","predicament":"People with no money eat where the owner tolerates their unpaid scores."},
|
||||
{"chunk":518,"story":56,"summary":"The restaurant's waitress is a magnificent figure who seems to belong entirely to the place she serves in.","predicament":"Someone fits their place so perfectly that others cannot imagine them elsewhere."},
|
||||
{"chunk":519,"story":56,"summary":"She mothers and overfeeds them for nothing; one of them says a fate hangs over her that would take her away.","predicament":"People fear that the person who feeds them will be taken away by better fortune."},
|
||||
{"chunk":520,"story":56,"summary":"The prediction is a rich timberman who will marry her and remove her from the place where she belongs.","predicament":"People dread the good fortune that would take a friend out of their reach."},
|
||||
{"chunk":521,"story":56,"summary":"A bearded miner arrives boasting of two millions, and is struck dumb the moment the waitress looms up with his order.","predicament":"A newly rich stranger is instantly taken with the person others depend on."},
|
||||
{"chunk":522,"story":56,"summary":"The three rush him out to drink, goad him into paying for everything, and have him carted to a distant hotel.","predicament":"People remove a rival by spending his own money until he is helpless."},
|
||||
{"chunk":523,"story":56,"summary":"Three years later the painter's picture of her sells for five thousand, and he admits his motive was not only theory.","predicament":"Someone's high-minded reason for driving off a rival turns out to be self-interest."},
|
||||
{"chunk":524,"story":57,"summary":"A mongrel pup is sold as a rare breed to a large woman and becomes her petted darling in a cheap flat.","predicament":"Someone is bought under a false description and doted on by the buyer."},
|
||||
{"chunk":525,"story":57,"summary":"The flat holds the usual furniture and a small henpecked husband who wipes dishes and walks the dog each evening.","predicament":"Someone in a household does every chore and is respected by nobody in it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":526,"story":57,"summary":"The wife idles all day and tidies up ten minutes before he returns; dog and husband keep to shabby streets.","predicament":"Two members of a household share the same daily humiliation without speaking of it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":527,"story":57,"summary":"The dog urges him to cheer up, and learns from a neighbouring terrier why its owner comes home whistling.","predicament":"Someone wonders how a neighbour endures the same life so cheerfully."},
|
||||
{"chunk":528,"story":57,"summary":"The remedy is drink; on the next walk the dog drags his man toward the doors of a saloon.","predicament":"Someone quietly steers another toward the escape that will free them both."},
|
||||
{"chunk":529,"story":57,"summary":"After an hour of drinks the man throws away the collar and tells the dog to go; the dog refuses to leave.","predicament":"Someone sets another free and finds they will not go without them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":530,"story":57,"summary":"The two set out together for the West, and the man gives the dog a plain new name of his own choosing.","predicament":"Two who were owned by the same household leave it together and start again."},
|
||||
{"chunk":531,"story":58,"summary":"The night clerk of an old-fashioned drug store is counsellor and confessor to the whole neighbourhood.","predicament":"Someone's counter makes them the confidant of everyone around them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":532,"story":58,"summary":"He loves his landlady's daughter but is too timid; his rival, bolder and friendly, drops in to ask for drugs.","predicament":"Someone too timid to speak watches a bolder rival court the same person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":533,"story":58,"summary":"The rival says they are to run away and marry that night, if the young woman does not change her mind again.","predicament":"Someone hears from a rival the plan that will settle the matter tonight."},
|
||||
{"chunk":534,"story":58,"summary":"The rival asks whether there is a powder that will make a girl like you better if it is given to her.","predicament":"Someone asks another for a means of making a person want them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":535,"story":58,"summary":"The clerk makes up a sleeping powder, hands it over, and then sends word of the elopement to the girl's father.","predicament":"Someone hands a rival a trap and then warns the one person who can stop them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":536,"story":58,"summary":"Next morning the rival appears married and happy: he would not drug her, so he put the powder in her father's coffee.","predicament":"Someone's double trap fails because the rival refused to use it as intended."},
|
||||
{"chunk":537,"story":59,"summary":"A retired soap manufacturer, despised by his aristocratic neighbours, calls his son in and asks what he pays for soap.","predicament":"Someone who made their money in trade is looked down on by their neighbours."},
|
||||
{"chunk":538,"story":59,"summary":"The father insists money buys anything; the son answers that it will not buy entry into exclusive society.","predicament":"Two people disagree about whether money can obtain what one of them wants."},
|
||||
{"chunk":539,"story":59,"summary":"Pressed, the son admits a woman is the trouble, and the father tells him to make his chance and ask her.","predicament":"Someone in love is told to act by a person who cannot see the obstacle."},
|
||||
{"chunk":540,"story":59,"summary":"She sails in two days, and all he will have is eight minutes in a cab between a train and a theatre.","predicament":"Someone has one small window of time in which to say the thing that matters."},
|
||||
{"chunk":541,"story":59,"summary":"His aunt gives him his mother's ring for luck; he meets the young woman at the station and they drive off.","predicament":"Someone sets out for their one chance carrying a keepsake meant to bring luck."},
|
||||
{"chunk":542,"story":59,"summary":"He stops the cab to recover the dropped ring, and in that minute the traffic locks solid all around them.","predicament":"Someone's brief delay traps them for hours exactly where they wanted to be."},
|
||||
{"chunk":543,"story":59,"summary":"Two hours in the blockade wins him her promise, and his aunt declares that love, not money, did it.","predicament":"Someone credits the outcome to sentiment rather than to anything that was arranged."},
|
||||
{"chunk":544,"story":59,"summary":"Next day a man calls for payment: he hired the wagons, cabs and police who made the blockade to order.","predicament":"Someone's miracle was bought and paid for by a person who denies nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":545,"story":60,"summary":"A freelance typist weeps over a menu card; she has no shorthand and lives by odd jobs of copying.","predicament":"Someone scraping a living by odd work is reduced to tears by something small."},
|
||||
{"chunk":546,"story":60,"summary":"She bargains with a restaurant to typewrite its daily bills of fare in exchange for three meals a day.","predicament":"Someone trades the one skill they have for food through a cold winter."},
|
||||
{"chunk":547,"story":60,"summary":"In a cold false spring she sits at her window looking past a brick wall to the lane where she was courted.","predicament":"Someone shut in a cold room sees only the place where they were happy."},
|
||||
{"chunk":548,"story":60,"summary":"The farmer crowned her with flowers and they were to marry at the first sign of spring; then she returned to work.","predicament":"Someone returns to work with a promise of marriage to be kept when the season turns."},
|
||||
{"chunk":549,"story":60,"summary":"Typing the spring menu she reaches the flower's name, has had no letter for two weeks, and breaks down.","predicament":"Someone at ordinary work meets the one word that undoes them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":550,"story":60,"summary":"She forces back the tears, finishes the cards, and at dinner sets that one dish aside untouched.","predicament":"Someone finishes their work and cannot bring themselves to eat what it named."},
|
||||
{"chunk":551,"story":60,"summary":"That evening the bell rings and her farmer comes up the stairs three at a time to find her.","predicament":"Someone given up for lost arrives without warning at the door."},
|
||||
{"chunk":552,"story":60,"summary":"He found her by the bill of fare, where her fingers had typed his name in place of the plant.","predicament":"Someone is found through a mistake their grief made in their ordinary work."},
|
||||
{"chunk":553,"story":61,"summary":"A true adventurer goes out aimless to meet whatever fate offers, unlike those with a prize in view.","predicament":"Someone follows chance for its own sake rather than toward any goal."},
|
||||
{"chunk":554,"story":61,"summary":"The city offers clues of adventure at every corner, and almost everyone passes them by out of convention.","predicament":"People are handed chances daily and let each one go by."},
|
||||
{"chunk":555,"story":61,"summary":"A piano salesman who takes up every chance passes a dentist's card-giver outside a building one evening.","predicament":"Someone who accepts every invitation from chance is handed another."},
|
||||
{"chunk":556,"story":61,"summary":"His card reads The Green Door in ink; the ones others drop are plain advertisements, and a second card says the same.","predicament":"Someone receives a message that nobody else appears to be given."},
|
||||
{"chunk":557,"story":61,"summary":"On a third pass he is given no card and reads contempt in the man's face for his hesitation.","predicament":"Someone hesitating over a summons is made to feel they have been found wanting."},
|
||||
{"chunk":558,"story":61,"summary":"He climbs the stairs, knocks at the green door, and a white-faced girl opens it and collapses into his arms.","predicament":"Someone answering a mysterious summons finds a person at the end of their strength."},
|
||||
{"chunk":559,"story":61,"summary":"She has not eaten in three days; he runs out and comes back loaded with food from the shops.","predicament":"Someone finds a stranger starving and goes at once for food."},
|
||||
{"chunk":560,"story":61,"summary":"Over supper she tells the common story of small wages, fines, illness, lost work and lost hope.","predicament":"Someone tells a stranger the ordinary story of how they came to be starving."},
|
||||
{"chunk":561,"story":61,"summary":"He promises to come back tomorrow, and tells her he knocked by mistake rather than reveal the cards.","predicament":"Someone hides what they know so the other need never feel exposed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":562,"story":61,"summary":"Every door in the house is green and the cards advertised a play; he decides Fate arranged it regardless.","predicament":"Someone learns their sign meant nothing and keeps believing it was meant for them."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":563,"story":62,"summary":"From his high seat a cab driver sees every passenger as mere goods in transit, to be despised at the reckoning.","predicament":"Someone who carries others for pay sees them only as fares."},
|
||||
{"chunk":564,"story":62,"summary":"A wedding is celebrated noisily in a tenement, and a cab driver stands by his fine hansom, plainly drunk.","predicament":"Someone at a celebration has drunk too much to know what they are doing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":565,"story":62,"summary":"A young woman steps into his cab and says to drive anywhere; he takes her through the park, singing.","predicament":"Someone accepts a passenger without noticing who they are."},
|
||||
{"chunk":566,"story":62,"summary":"He stops at a garden restaurant; she is swept inside, orders one beer with her coins, and watches entranced.","predicament":"Someone with a few coins is set down among luxury and simply enjoys it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":567,"story":62,"summary":"Hours later he demands four dollars before going further; she laughs that she has only a few pennies.","predicament":"Someone demands payment from a passenger who never had the money."},
|
||||
{"chunk":568,"story":62,"summary":"He drags her to the police station to complain, sobers, and introduces her to the sergeant as the bride he married tonight.","predicament":"Someone about to accuse a stranger recognises the person they married that evening."},
|
||||
{"chunk":569,"story":63,"summary":"The narrator dreams of the day of judgment, where an angel policeman asks if he belongs with a prosperous-looking group.","predicament":"Someone at a final reckoning is asked which group of the accused they belong to."},
|
||||
{"chunk":570,"story":63,"summary":"A shop girl on six dollars a week tells her friend she has accepted a dinner invitation from a known spender.","predicament":"Someone living on almost nothing accepts an invitation that may cost them more than money."},
|
||||
{"chunk":571,"story":63,"summary":"She spends the fifty cents meant for three meals on an imitation lace collar, and goes up to her furnished room.","predicament":"Someone spends their food money on looking fit for an occasion."},
|
||||
{"chunk":572,"story":63,"summary":"Her room holds a few treasures and portraits; her weekly budget for rent and food leaves nothing for clothes.","predicament":"Someone's wage exactly covers survival and nothing else."},
|
||||
{"chunk":573,"story":63,"summary":"Her pleasures are counted by summers; the man calling for her is a well-dressed connoisseur of hungry shop girls.","predicament":"Someone starved of pleasure is about to be preyed on by a person who knows it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":574,"story":63,"summary":"Dressed and happy, she turns for her handkerchief, meets a hero's portrait's stern eyes, and sends word she cannot go.","predicament":"Someone about to accept a dangerous invitation turns it down at the last moment."},
|
||||
{"chunk":575,"story":63,"summary":"She cries, changes back into her old gown, and dines on crackers and jam, offering some to the portrait.","predicament":"Someone who refused a temptation consoles themselves alone with what little they have."},
|
||||
{"chunk":576,"story":63,"summary":"She scolds the portrait; the story stops, and the dream's prosperous group proves to be employers who paid girls six dollars a week.","predicament":"Someone holds out tonight, knowing they may not the next time loneliness wins."},
|
||||
{"chunk":577,"story":64,"summary":"A ragged man on a park bench believes himself a prince in disguise, far richer than the owners of the mansions opposite.","predicament":"Someone with nothing imagines that they have chosen to have nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":578,"story":64,"summary":"He tells himself he has renounced wealth to study humanity and delights in bestowing gifts on the deserving.","predicament":"Someone powerless sustains themselves with the belief that they help others."},
|
||||
{"chunk":579,"story":64,"summary":"A young man in evening clothes watches the clock tower in distress; the ragged prince approaches and offers his help.","predicament":"Someone anxiously waiting is offered help by a stranger who plainly has none to give."},
|
||||
{"chunk":580,"story":64,"summary":"The prince denounces clocks as tyrants; the young man keeps glancing from the clock to a lit house opposite.","predicament":"Someone counting down to a verdict is lectured by a stranger about time."},
|
||||
{"chunk":581,"story":64,"summary":"At ten to nine the young man nearly leaves, then explains he wronged his fiancee and awaits her decision.","predicament":"Someone who wronged the person they love waits for a sign of forgiveness."},
|
||||
{"chunk":582,"story":64,"summary":"She promised a white scarf in the window at half past eight if she forgave him; the hour has passed and he despairs.","predicament":"Someone believes the deadline for forgiveness has passed without a sign."},
|
||||
{"chunk":583,"story":64,"summary":"The prince promises a fortune on his wedding day and falls asleep; the young man covers him kindly, then the clock strikes.","predicament":"Someone despairing is kind to a poorer stranger just before their luck turns."},
|
||||
{"chunk":584,"story":64,"summary":"The scarf appears: the clock was half an hour fast; next morning police find the sleeping vagrant clutching a fifty-dollar bill.","predicament":"Someone despairs over a deadline that was never real, and a kindness is quietly repaid."},
|
||||
{"chunk":585,"story":65,"summary":"A sightseeing coach sets out, and on its highest back seat sit a young man from a small town and his bride.","predicament":"Two people newly married see the great city together for the first time."},
|
||||
{"chunk":586,"story":65,"summary":"The guide bellows mistaken sights at passengers who gape at whatever he names, the bride among them.","predicament":"People new to a place believe whatever the guide tells them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":587,"story":65,"summary":"The bride's face shows she thinks her husband right and the world excellent; he is twenty-four and rising.","predicament":"Two people newly married are completely content with each other and the world."},
|
||||
{"chunk":588,"story":65,"summary":"In front of them sits a girl in a flowered hat beside a sharp-eyed young man who belongs to hard streets.","predicament":"Two couples share a seat; one of them has something to hide."},
|
||||
{"chunk":589,"story":65,"summary":"The two women exchange a look and a whisper; the girl's companion slips over the side just as officers stop the coach.","predicament":"Two strangers understand each other at a glance, and one acts to help the other."},
|
||||
{"chunk":590,"story":65,"summary":"The officers take the bridegroom for a wanted burglar; he goes down amused, expecting to explain.","predicament":"Someone is mistaken for a wanted person and expects the mistake to clear itself."},
|
||||
{"chunk":591,"story":65,"summary":"His bride tells him to go quietly as the burglar, so he fights the police in fury until her uncle clears him.","predicament":"Someone is betrayed in front of the police by the person they trust most."},
|
||||
{"chunk":592,"story":65,"summary":"She explains that the other pair had married that morning, and she could not refuse another bride her happiness.","predicament":"Someone sacrifices their partner's peace to protect a stranger in the same happy state."},
|
||||
{"chunk":593,"story":66,"summary":"A broker arrives with his stenographer and plunges into work; she lingers, then asks whether he ordered a replacement.","predicament":"Someone expected to be noticed today is treated as part of the furniture."},
|
||||
{"chunk":594,"story":66,"summary":"The clerk says the broker ordered one; she says she will work until someone comes, and the day's frenzy begins.","predicament":"Someone learns they are being replaced and quietly carries on working."},
|
||||
{"chunk":595,"story":66,"summary":"An applicant arrives; the broker denies ordering any replacement and says the place is hers as long as she likes.","predicament":"Someone's employer forgets a decision made the day before."},
|
||||
{"chunk":596,"story":66,"summary":"In a lull the scent of lilac reminds him of her, and he rushes to her desk to propose at once.","predicament":"Someone overwhelmed by work suddenly remembers the one thing that matters to them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":597,"story":66,"summary":"He proposes in a hurry, papers in hand; she weeps, then reminds him they were married the evening before.","predicament":"Someone is so consumed by work they forget the most important thing already happened."},
|
||||
{"chunk":598,"story":67,"summary":"A patrolman on his beat finds a man in a dark doorway who says he is keeping an appointment made twenty years ago.","predicament":"Someone keeps a promise to meet an old friend after twenty years apart."},
|
||||
{"chunk":599,"story":67,"summary":"He tells of parting from his best friend twenty years ago, each to make a fortune, and shows a diamond watch.","predicament":"Someone who prospered far away returns trusting a friend to keep their old word."},
|
||||
{"chunk":600,"story":67,"summary":"The patrolman moves on; twenty minutes later a tall man hurries across the street and greets him as his old friend.","predicament":"Someone waiting in the rain is greeted by the person they have waited for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":601,"story":67,"summary":"They walk arm in arm until, under a bright light, he sees the stranger is not his friend at all.","predicament":"Someone realises the person they trusted on sight is not who they claimed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":602,"story":67,"summary":"The stranger arrests him and hands him a note: his friend was the patrolman, and could not make the arrest himself.","predicament":"Someone must choose between their friend and their duty, and sends another to act."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":603,"story":68,"summary":"A draughtsman on eighteen dollars a week saves a dollar weekly to spend one evening in ten dressed and dining as a rich idler.","predicament":"Someone of modest means saves for months to pass one evening as rich."},
|
||||
{"chunk":604,"story":68,"summary":"Parading the bright street in borrowed grandeur, he stops at a corner as a girl slips on ice and falls.","predicament":"Someone enjoying their rare evening of show stops to help a stranger who falls."},
|
||||
{"chunk":605,"story":68,"summary":"He helps her up; she seems a refined working girl in a plain dress, and he decides to invite her to dine.","predicament":"Someone playing a part decides to share their one evening with a stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":606,"story":68,"summary":"He invites her to dinner to rest her ankle; she hesitates over her plain clothes, and he insists they suit her.","predicament":"Someone extends an invitation across what they believe is a gap in station."},
|
||||
{"chunk":607,"story":68,"summary":"She accepts and gives only her first name; at a good restaurant each looks at the other with growing admiration.","predicament":"Two strangers enjoy each other's company without knowing the truth about either."},
|
||||
{"chunk":608,"story":68,"summary":"Carried away, he boasts of clubs, yachts and idleness; she asks whether he has no work that would interest him more.","predicament":"Someone lies about their standing to impress a person who would have preferred the truth."},
|
||||
{"chunk":609,"story":68,"summary":"They part; he wishes he had told the truth; she hurries to a grand mansion where her sister has been anxious.","predicament":"Someone regrets the lie they told, while the other returns to a life they also hid."},
|
||||
{"chunk":610,"story":68,"summary":"She tells her sister she could love a poor man with an ambition, but never an idler between clubs and society.","predicament":"Someone describes exactly the person they would love, and it is who the liar really was."},
|
||||
{"chunk":611,"story":69,"summary":"A young man passing a young woman on a park bench stops further on, and sends a boy with a message to her.","predicament":"Someone forbidden to speak to a person they love sends word through a stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":612,"story":69,"summary":"The message says he is leaving the country and asks her, for old times' sake, why she discarded him without explanation.","predicament":"Someone dismissed without explanation makes one last appeal for a reason."},
|
||||
{"chunk":613,"story":69,"summary":"The boy delivers it in street slang; she answers with cool irony that she knew the gentleman and will hear it.","predicament":"Someone receives an appeal from a person they have cut off, and listens coldly."},
|
||||
{"chunk":614,"story":69,"summary":"She says she saw him in the conservatory embracing another woman, and so gave up both her rose and her ideal.","predicament":"Someone judged by what they appeared to be doing was never asked to explain it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":615,"story":69,"summary":"He sends back a letter, saying a little trust would have spared much heartache, and the boy vouches for him.","predicament":"Someone wrongly condemned produces the proof they were never given a chance to show."},
|
||||
{"chunk":616,"story":69,"summary":"The letter thanks him, a doctor, for catching the other woman when she fainted; the young woman sends back that she wants him.","predicament":"Someone learns that what they condemned was a kindness, and takes the person back."},
|
||||
{"chunk":617,"story":70,"summary":"In a district of transient lodgers, a young man rings a dozen bells and is shown a room by a sinister housekeeper.","predicament":"Someone searching for a place to stay tries door after door in a shifting neighbourhood."},
|
||||
{"chunk":618,"story":70,"summary":"She praises the room and its last tenants, a stage couple; many of her lodgers work in the theatres and move on.","predicament":"Someone is shown a room by a landlady eager to describe everyone but the truth."},
|
||||
{"chunk":619,"story":70,"summary":"He takes the room and asks, as he has a thousand times, after a young singer; the answer, as always, is no.","predicament":"Someone has searched for months for a lost person and hears the same answer again."},
|
||||
{"chunk":620,"story":70,"summary":"Alone in the shabby room, he takes in the pictures and castoffs that pursue the homeless from house to house.","predicament":"Someone alone in a strange room reads the traces of everyone who stayed there before."},
|
||||
{"chunk":621,"story":70,"summary":"The room's damage speaks of the rage of past tenants against a place that pretended to be a home.","predicament":"Someone sees in a room's scars how others resented a home that was never theirs."},
|
||||
{"chunk":622,"story":70,"summary":"Suddenly the room fills with the scent the lost girl loved, and he cries out that she has been here.","predicament":"Someone senses the presence of the person they seek, but cannot find any proof."},
|
||||
{"chunk":623,"story":70,"summary":"He ransacks drawers and corners for any trace of her and finds only the anonymous leavings of strangers.","predicament":"Someone searches everywhere for one sign they are right, and finds nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":624,"story":70,"summary":"The housekeeper lists the room's previous tenants, none like her; he returns and the scent has gone.","predicament":"Someone asks directly and is told a lie that ends their last hope."},
|
||||
{"chunk":625,"story":70,"summary":"He seals the room and turns on the gas; below, the housekeeper admits a young girl killed herself in that bed a week ago.","predicament":"Someone gives up just as the truth is being concealed a floor below them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":626,"story":71,"summary":"A cheap chop house is kept by a sour owner at the cash desk, and served by two waitresses, one of them beautiful.","predicament":"Two people do the same work where only one of them is noticed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":627,"story":71,"summary":"The other waitress is plain and too anxious to please; every customer is enslaved by her beautiful partner.","predicament":"Someone plain works beside someone admired and receives none of the attention."},
|
||||
{"chunk":628,"story":71,"summary":"The beautiful one is courted and given presents by regulars; the plain one has never had a single admirer.","predicament":"Someone who has never been wanted watches another be wanted daily."},
|
||||
{"chunk":629,"story":71,"summary":"The plain one is loyal and content to be overlooked, and listens enviously to her friend's tale of being followed and struck.","predicament":"Someone envies even the troubles that come to people others find desirable."},
|
||||
{"chunk":630,"story":71,"summary":"A shy customer, drunk, kisses the plain waitress and leaves; her friend teases her as a rival, and she feels transformed.","predicament":"Someone overlooked all their life is suddenly singled out, and becomes someone new."},
|
||||
{"chunk":631,"story":71,"summary":"She tells the owner and every customer she was insulted; she gets a raise, ribbons and new attention.","predicament":"Someone makes the most of the single sign that they were desired."},
|
||||
{"chunk":632,"story":71,"summary":"The man returns to apologise, saying he was drunk and would never have done it sober; she sobs among the cups.","predicament":"Someone learns the one sign of being wanted was an accident the other regrets."},
|
||||
{"chunk":633,"story":72,"summary":"Two country girls come to the city for work; one irons in a laundry and dresses loudly on good wages.","predicament":"Someone takes the best-paying work available and spends it on show."},
|
||||
{"chunk":634,"story":72,"summary":"The other sells in a department store at eight dollars a week, dressed plainly but in the manner of the rich.","predicament":"Someone chooses lower pay to stay close to the people they hope to join."},
|
||||
{"chunk":635,"story":72,"summary":"The store girl says she means to catch a rich husband; the laundress met her steady young man over her ironing board.","predicament":"Two friends argue whether to aim high and hungry or stay content with what comes."},
|
||||
{"chunk":636,"story":72,"summary":"The laundress's steady electrician arrives and proposes the theatre, and the two women trade teasing about manners.","predicament":"Someone steady and plain is overlooked by the people he takes out."},
|
||||
{"chunk":637,"story":72,"summary":"In the store the girl copies the gestures, voice and walk of her richest customers and absorbs their manners.","predicament":"Someone learns the manners of a class above them by watching it closely."},
|
||||
{"chunk":638,"story":72,"summary":"The store girls pool their stratagems for fending off men, and she learns the art of defence.","predicament":"People in the same position share their methods for dealing with those who pursue them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":639,"story":72,"summary":"Men linger at her counter; she learns to tell the real rich from the imitators by the cars waiting outside.","predicament":"Someone hunting a prize learns to tell the genuine article from the imitation."},
|
||||
{"chunk":640,"story":72,"summary":"A genuinely rich young man proposes to her over the counter, and she declines him to her colleague's horror.","predicament":"Someone turns down the prize they were seeking because of what they saw in the person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":641,"story":72,"summary":"She explains that he was caught in a lie and that she wants someone who is more than a moneybag.","predicament":"Someone holds out for character in a partner even at the price of a fortune."},
|
||||
{"chunk":642,"story":72,"summary":"She keeps hunting on eight dollars a week, while the laundress spends her wages on ever showier clothes.","predicament":"Two friends pursue their different ideas of success and slowly drift from the same person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":643,"story":72,"summary":"The laundress refuses to marry her steady man and keep house, and offers to find her friend better-paid work.","predicament":"Someone keeps a faithful suitor waiting because their independence pleases them more."},
|
||||
{"chunk":644,"story":72,"summary":"The store girl says she is still looking the rich over; her friend mocks her plain jacket and bets she will catch one first.","predicament":"Two friends compete over who will marry better, each sure of her own method."},
|
||||
{"chunk":645,"story":72,"summary":"Surrounded by luxury, her standard of value slowly shifts from money toward truth, honour and kindness.","predicament":"Someone pursuing wealth finds they have begun to value something else."},
|
||||
{"chunk":646,"story":72,"summary":"The steady man says the laundress has vanished, seen riding with a rich man; the store girl goes to the show with him.","predicament":"Someone abandoned by the person they waited for is comforted by the friend left behind."},
|
||||
{"chunk":647,"story":72,"summary":"Months later the laundress, dressed in furs and jewels, learns her friend is marrying the man she left, and sobs against a fence.","predicament":"Someone who took the glittering offer sees the one they rejected make another happy."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":648,"story":73,"summary":"A wealthy man receives his wife's photograph and a letter hinting ill of her, tears it up, and asks about the homeless men outside.","predicament":"Someone far from their partner is sent poison about them and cannot check it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":649,"story":73,"summary":"He orders his servant to fetch one of the homeless men at random to dine with him, to lift his mood.","predicament":"Someone troubled seeks distraction by inviting a stranger from the street."},
|
||||
{"chunk":650,"story":73,"summary":"The guest arrives washed but wrecked, defiant and unembarrassed, and announces his own name before his host's.","predicament":"Someone brought in from the street keeps their pride at a rich person's table."},
|
||||
{"chunk":651,"story":73,"summary":"The guest mocks the city's would-be benefactors, who all pay for a meal by extracting the recipient's life story.","predicament":"Someone who lives on charity knows the price is always their story."},
|
||||
{"chunk":652,"story":73,"summary":"The host asks for no story; the guest offers the truth instead: he was once a fashionable portrait painter.","predicament":"Someone offered kindness without conditions responds by telling the truth."},
|
||||
{"chunk":653,"story":73,"summary":"His portraits revealed each sitter's hidden character, and one after another his patrons were exposed and turned on him.","predicament":"Someone's gift for showing the truth about people costs them every client."},
|
||||
{"chunk":654,"story":73,"summary":"Unable to work anywhere, he took to drink; the host has him draw a sketch from the photograph of his wife.","predicament":"Someone tormented by doubt asks for a test that could confirm their worst fear."},
|
||||
{"chunk":655,"story":73,"summary":"The painter leaves with money; the host cannot bring himself to look, and sends for a young artist to judge the sketch.","predicament":"Someone holds the answer to their doubt and is afraid to look at it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":656,"story":73,"summary":"The young artist calls the drawing a master's and the face an angel's; the host cries that she is his wife.","predicament":"Someone's fear about the person they love is answered in that person's favour."},
|
||||
{"chunk":657,"story":74,"summary":"A man stopping at his usual bar after work overhears a friend saying he was very drunk there last night.","predicament":"Someone overhears how others really see a habit they thought harmless."},
|
||||
{"chunk":658,"story":74,"summary":"Shaken, he orders seltzer and leaves; the story recalls his summer courtship of his wife and their shared love of a poem.","predicament":"Someone confronted with the truth about themselves resolves to change at once."},
|
||||
{"chunk":659,"story":74,"summary":"They married, came to the city, and as his salary rose they took up the showy, drinking life of the cafes.","predicament":"Two people drift gradually into habits neither of them chose deliberately."},
|
||||
{"chunk":660,"story":74,"summary":"Their home life becomes cocktails and late parties, and he comes home merry each evening to wild greetings.","predicament":"Two people mistake shared excess for shared happiness."},
|
||||
{"chunk":661,"story":74,"summary":"He comes home sober, kisses her quietly, and when she asks what is wrong, he answers that nothing is.","predicament":"Someone changes suddenly and will not explain why to the person who notices."},
|
||||
{"chunk":662,"story":74,"summary":"He declines the whisky at dinner and says he has stopped; she answers coldly, and the evening dies in silence.","predicament":"Someone's reform is felt by their partner as a rebuke they were not consulted about."},
|
||||
{"chunk":663,"story":74,"summary":"She sets out the bottle defiantly; he recites their old verse to her, then goes and pours himself a drink.","predicament":"Someone about to relapse reminds the other, unintentionally, of who they both used to be."},
|
||||
{"chunk":664,"story":74,"summary":"She sweeps the bottle and glasses to the floor, embraces him, and asks for the verse about remoulding things nearer the heart's desire.","predicament":"Two people see what their life has become and choose together to break it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":665,"story":75,"summary":"A man two years married walks home from the train knowing exactly how the whole evening will go.","predicament":"Someone's home life has become so routine that nothing in it can surprise them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":666,"story":75,"summary":"He knows the dinner, the noises of the flats, and that at a quarter past eight he will leave to play pool.","predicament":"Someone escapes a dull household every evening and has stopped noticing it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":667,"story":75,"summary":"Tonight she is gone, her things scattered in haste, with a note that her mother is ill and she has taken the train.","predicament":"Someone comes home to find the person they took for granted suddenly absent."},
|
||||
{"chunk":668,"story":75,"summary":"Alone for the first time in two years of marriage, he tidies her things with a feeling close to terror.","predicament":"Someone realises how much they depended on a person only when that person is gone."},
|
||||
{"chunk":669,"story":75,"summary":"He eats cold mutton alone; the whole night is free for pleasure, and he discovers he does not want it.","predicament":"Someone given the freedom they wanted finds it worthless without the person they escaped."},
|
||||
{"chunk":670,"story":75,"summary":"He calls himself a brute for neglecting her, resolves to take her out and give up his cronies, and she walks in.","predicament":"Someone resolves to change just as the need for change disappears."},
|
||||
{"chunk":671,"story":75,"summary":"Her mother was hardly ill and she came straight back; at a quarter past eight he reaches for his hat as always.","predicament":"Someone's resolution vanishes the moment the thing they missed is restored."},
|
||||
{"chunk":672,"story":76,"summary":"On the national holiday a vagrant takes the same bench he has taken at the same hour for nine years.","predicament":"Someone keeps an annual appointment that has become an institution."},
|
||||
{"chunk":673,"story":76,"summary":"This year he arrives already gorged, having just eaten an enormous unexpected dinner, and can barely breathe.","predicament":"Someone arrives for a ritual meal having already eaten beyond their limit."},
|
||||
{"chunk":674,"story":76,"summary":"Two old ladies' custom of feeding the first hungry passer-by caught him; now he sees his yearly benefactor approaching.","predicament":"Someone sees their benefactor coming and cannot possibly accept what is offered."},
|
||||
{"chunk":675,"story":76,"summary":"For nine years an old gentleman has fed this same man a holiday dinner, hoping to found an American tradition.","predicament":"Someone lonely has built their only ritual around a stranger's hunger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":676,"story":76,"summary":"He makes his usual speech of invitation, a little sadly, wishing he had a son to carry on the custom after him.","predicament":"Someone with no heirs wants a small kindness to outlive them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":677,"story":76,"summary":"The old man lives alone in rented rooms; seeing his joy, the gorged vagrant accepts in the usual words out of duty.","predicament":"Someone accepts a kindness they cannot use so as not to disappoint the giver."},
|
||||
{"chunk":678,"story":76,"summary":"At the restaurant he eats a second vast dinner rather than dim the old man's happiness, then collapses around the corner.","predicament":"Someone suffers greatly to preserve another person's pleasure in giving."},
|
||||
{"chunk":679,"story":76,"summary":"Both men land in the hospital, where a doctor mentions the old gentleman is starving: he had not eaten for three days.","predicament":"Someone gives their last to keep a tradition and has kept nothing for themselves."},
|
||||
{"chunk":680,"story":77,"summary":"A well-dressed man without a cent walks through a park pitying the idle poor, sure he will be rich again by morning.","predicament":"Someone penniless looks down on others, confident their wits will provide."},
|
||||
{"chunk":681,"story":77,"summary":"He gets five dollars from a clergyman with a forged letter, then placates a creditor in the street with drinks.","predicament":"Someone lives by lies and turns every creditor into a friend for the evening."},
|
||||
{"chunk":682,"story":77,"summary":"He loses most of it at roulette, then cheats a small child of the change from his mother's medicine money.","predicament":"Someone with nothing left preys even on a child running an errand."},
|
||||
{"chunk":683,"story":77,"summary":"He saves the child from two street cars, sends him off swindled and happy, and dines laughing at how easily everyone is taken in.","predicament":"Someone who cheats everyone also acts on reflex to save a life."},
|
||||
{"chunk":684,"story":77,"summary":"Old friends try to sweep him off to a dinner party; he declines with a grand lie, delighted at how front works.","predicament":"Someone lies even when the truth would serve, for the pleasure of being believed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":685,"story":77,"summary":"An old countryman asks for his son's address; the swindler first refuses, then claims to live next door to the son.","predicament":"Someone lost in a strange city asks help of exactly the wrong person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":686,"story":77,"summary":"An hour later, with a hundred and forty dollars, he tosses a beggar a dollar and tells him work is for fools.","predicament":"Someone who takes from everyone gives a little and preaches contempt for honest work."},
|
||||
{"chunk":687,"story":77,"summary":"Crossing to his hotel he sees a pure-faced girl he sat beside at school, and hides his burning face against a lamp-post.","predicament":"Someone who despises everyone is undone by the sight of their own innocent past."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":688,"story":78,"summary":"The senior partner of a great western dry-goods store sends his junior east to buy the season's stock this year.","predicament":"Someone is sent in another's place on an errand far from home."},
|
||||
{"chunk":689,"story":78,"summary":"The wholesaler greets the buyer, predicts his order from the rainfall, and tells his son to show him the town.","predicament":"Someone new to a place is entertained by people who want their business."},
|
||||
{"chunk":690,"story":78,"summary":"Unimpressed by the city's lights, the buyer is struck motionless when the firm's best model comes to show the gowns.","predicament":"Someone indifferent to everything around them is stopped dead by one person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":691,"story":78,"summary":"She models gown after gown with a tired contempt, and the wholesaler offers her as company for dinner.","predicament":"Someone's employer offers their time to a customer as part of the sale."},
|
||||
{"chunk":692,"story":78,"summary":"She agrees coolly; at dinner he takes away her cocktail and asks her first name, which she gives freezingly.","predicament":"Someone treated as a customer's entertainment meets one who treats them as a person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":693,"story":78,"summary":"He tells her she will go home with him and offers a diamond; she flicks it back, sure he is like all buyers.","predicament":"Someone used to buyers' advances cannot tell a sincere proposal from the usual ones."},
|
||||
{"chunk":694,"story":78,"summary":"She explains she must dine with buyers or lose her place; he says she will drink no more wine, and she weeps.","predicament":"Someone's livelihood requires accepting attentions they despise."},
|
||||
{"chunk":695,"story":78,"summary":"She slaps him; a wedding ring falls from his pocket, and that night she wakes her roommate to ask where his town is.","predicament":"Someone realises the offer they rejected as insult was honest, and accepts it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":696,"story":79,"summary":"A rich man's war comrade turns up penniless at his club and asks for help finding a job.","predicament":"Someone asks a richer friend from shared hardship for a start."},
|
||||
{"chunk":697,"story":79,"summary":"The rich man gets him the post he asks for, a mounted policeman in the park, and soon after glimpses a beautiful woman.","predicament":"Someone helps a friend into work and then falls for a stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":698,"story":79,"summary":"He falls in love with a young woman in a passing motor car; later, at a reunion, the policeman gets too drunk to ride.","predicament":"Someone's friend is about to lose their post through one night's excess."},
|
||||
{"chunk":699,"story":79,"summary":"To save his friend's badge, the rich man puts on the uniform and rides the patrol in his place.","predicament":"Someone takes a friend's place to protect their job and good name."},
|
||||
{"chunk":700,"story":79,"summary":"In the park he meets the woman he loves in a carriage; the horses bolt and he rides them down.","predicament":"Someone in a borrowed identity performs a rescue for the person they love."},
|
||||
{"chunk":701,"story":79,"summary":"Thanked and asked his name, he realises giving it would disgrace his friend, and answers that it is only his duty.","predicament":"Someone must forgo the credit they want most to protect a friend's position."},
|
||||
{"chunk":702,"story":79,"summary":"His friend reveals he is an earl's son whose family has found him, and that the woman, his sister, wants to meet the rescuer.","predicament":"Someone's sacrifice for a friend is repaid with the very thing they gave up."},
|
||||
{"chunk":703,"story":80,"summary":"A rich heir, annoyed at being kept in town to sign papers, grumbles at the family lawyer.","predicament":"Someone who owns much is bored by the duties that come with it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":704,"story":80,"summary":"The lawyer tries to raise a matter of right concerning his properties; he brushes it off and finds his club empty.","predicament":"Someone avoids hearing about the consequences of what they own."},
|
||||
{"chunk":705,"story":80,"summary":"On a whim he takes a crowded boat to the amusement beach and falls into talk with a frank, pretty girl.","predicament":"Someone of standing slips among ordinary people and is charmed by one of them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":706,"story":80,"summary":"She teases him, lets him join her, and tells him she trims hats and lives in a furnished room with a friend.","predicament":"Someone poor explains their plain life to a stranger without embarrassment."},
|
||||
{"chunk":707,"story":80,"summary":"The crowd's vulgarity repels him until he looks at her happy face and suddenly sees the place as she does.","predicament":"Someone despising other people's pleasures sees them differently through one person's eyes."},
|
||||
{"chunk":708,"story":80,"summary":"He throws himself into the amusements with her, and on the boat home he forgets his cares and repeats her name.","predicament":"Someone set apart by wealth enjoys themselves plainly for the first time."},
|
||||
{"chunk":709,"story":80,"summary":"A steamer rams their boat; the life preservers prove rotten, and she laughs and holds his hand calmly.","predicament":"Someone in danger finds the safeguards meant to protect them are fraudulent."},
|
||||
{"chunk":710,"story":80,"summary":"He declares his love; she says that is what they all say, and explains she meets men on boats and in the street.","predicament":"Someone learns the person they love must meet strangers in public for want of a place."},
|
||||
{"chunk":711,"story":80,"summary":"She explains that where she lives there is no parlour and no room to receive anyone, so a girl must meet men outside.","predicament":"Someone's living conditions force them into risks that others judge them for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":712,"story":80,"summary":"Next day he learns the houses without parlours are his own; he tells the lawyer to change them, crying it is too late.","predicament":"Someone discovers they caused the harm they deplore, too late to undo it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":713,"story":81,"summary":"A wandering tramp studies each city as a poet would, finding its soul and then moving restlessly to another.","predicament":"Someone moves from place to place, understanding each and belonging to none."},
|
||||
{"chunk":714,"story":81,"summary":"He has personal fancies for each city he has known: one hearty, one aloof, one chilling, each with its own figure.","predicament":"Someone judges every place by how it treated them as a stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":715,"story":81,"summary":"He arrives in the greatest city meaning to read it like the others, and by afternoon is defeated and frightened.","predicament":"Someone confident of reading any place meets one that gives them nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":716,"story":81,"summary":"No one looks at him or speaks to him; he longs for even the kicks and stares of the rougher cities.","predicament":"Someone would rather be mistreated than ignored."},
|
||||
{"chunk":717,"story":81,"summary":"The people seem cold, conceited idols; he singles out three types: a rich old man, a cold beauty, and a jowled tough.","predicament":"Someone surrounded by strangers finds them all cold and self-absorbed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":718,"story":81,"summary":"Refused alms, he is struck by a car, and opens his eyes to find those same three strangers tending him with care.","predicament":"Someone who thought a place heartless is cared for by it at their worst moment."},
|
||||
{"chunk":719,"story":81,"summary":"A kindly crowd gathers and he says he feels fine; three days later he fights a patient for running down his city.","predicament":"Someone who found the heart of a place defends it against the next stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":720,"story":82,"summary":"The vainest and cleverest member of a street gang of well-dressed robbers withdraws from it because the girl he loves asks him to.","predicament":"Someone gives up profitable wrongdoing because the person they love asks."},
|
||||
{"chunk":721,"story":82,"summary":"He promises to work honestly and marry within a year, though he looks mournfully at his fine clothes.","predicament":"Someone commits to an honest life knowing it will cost them their pride."},
|
||||
{"chunk":722,"story":82,"summary":"He returns to plumbing as an assistant for eight months, his clothes wearing thin, then brings her a mysterious parcel.","predicament":"Someone going straight grows shabby and wants to show they still have style."},
|
||||
{"chunk":723,"story":82,"summary":"The parcel holds costly-looking sables; she is overjoyed, then looks at him steadily, doubting how he paid.","predicament":"Someone receives a gift too fine for the giver's wages and wonders where it came from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":724,"story":82,"summary":"She parades them through the neighbourhood as a queen; a fair-minded detective hears of the fabulous furs and follows.","predicament":"Someone's display of a gift draws the attention of the person investigating a theft."},
|
||||
{"chunk":725,"story":82,"summary":"The detective says a lady's sables vanished from a house the man worked at yesterday, and offers to check his story.","predicament":"Someone who reformed is suspected at once when something goes missing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":726,"story":82,"summary":"He admits theft rather than say where he bought them; a policeman who sold furs prices them at twenty-one dollars.","predicament":"Someone would rather be thought a thief than be seen to have bought cheap."},
|
||||
{"chunk":727,"story":82,"summary":"She cries that she wants only him, not furs; the real sables were found at home, and the officers let them go.","predicament":"Someone's vanity nearly ruins them, and the person they tried to impress forgives it."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":728,"story":83,"summary":"A tailor's apprentice with his week's twelve dollars goes to the cafe where the district's political leader is celebrating victory.","predicament":"Someone at the bottom worships the powerful person at the top of their small world."},
|
||||
{"chunk":729,"story":83,"summary":"Emboldened, he shakes the great man's hand and spends his whole week's wages buying wine for him and his lieutenants.","predicament":"Someone spends everything they have for a moment's acknowledgement from a superior."},
|
||||
{"chunk":730,"story":83,"summary":"His family shrieks and strikes at him over the lost wages, but he is ecstatic; the leader himself cannot enter the best houses.","predicament":"Someone considers a public humiliation worth it for the honour they gained."},
|
||||
{"chunk":731,"story":83,"summary":"At a fashionable restaurant the political leader dines gloomily, ignored; across the room sits a millionaire of the oldest society.","predicament":"Someone powerful in their own world is nobody in the world they want to enter."},
|
||||
{"chunk":732,"story":83,"summary":"The leader walks over and offers help with the aristocrat's reforms; the handshake raises him in every eye, and he orders wine for all.","predicament":"Someone gains standing by offering service to the person whose acceptance they crave."},
|
||||
{"chunk":733,"story":83,"summary":"The aristocrat drives his fiancee through the slums, pointing out where he will build kitchens and replace the old death-traps.","predicament":"Someone at the very top seeks meaning by helping those at the very bottom."},
|
||||
{"chunk":734,"story":83,"summary":"On impulse he grasps the hand of a squalid young man coming out of a tenement, and feels almost happy: it is the apprentice.","predicament":"Each person in the chain seeks the approval of the one above and gives it below."},
|
||||
{"chunk":735,"story":84,"summary":"Two shop girls plan new dresses for the store's holiday dinner, one purple, one red, each hoping to charm the head clerk.","predicament":"Two coworkers compete quietly for the notice of the same person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":736,"story":84,"summary":"She has saved eighteen dollars over eight months and needs four more to collect the dress the day before the holiday.","predicament":"Someone has saved for months toward a single occasion and is nearly there."},
|
||||
{"chunk":737,"story":84,"summary":"The head clerk is a gentleman and a health crank, and every girl in the store dreams of becoming his wife.","predicament":"Everyone in a workplace hopes to win the same well-placed person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":738,"story":84,"summary":"The night before, her rival is locked out over four dollars of rent; she gives her the four dollars meant for the dress.","predicament":"Someone gives a rival the money they needed to reach their own goal."},
|
||||
{"chunk":739,"story":84,"summary":"Her rival goes to the dinner in red; she stays home by the window, then tells the tailor she cannot pay.","predicament":"Someone misses the occasion they saved for, having given their chance away."},
|
||||
{"chunk":740,"story":84,"summary":"The tailor, who has watched her pass for two years, gives her the dress to pay later; she walks out happy into the rain.","predicament":"Someone is trusted on credit by a stranger who has quietly observed their character."},
|
||||
{"chunk":741,"story":84,"summary":"The head clerk meets her walking bareheaded in the rain, praises her dress and her good sense, and asks to walk with her.","predicament":"Someone who gave up their chance is noticed anyway, by accident, by the person they hoped for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":742,"story":85,"summary":"A fire company's cart driver follows a foreign war obsessively on a pinned map, cheering one side and cursing the other.","predicament":"Someone takes fierce sides in a distant quarrel that has nothing to do with them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":743,"story":85,"summary":"The firemen live by an unwritten code; meanwhile a grinning, bewildered immigrant is put ashore and wanders into the city.","predicament":"Someone arrives in a strange country with nothing and understands nothing around them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":744,"story":85,"summary":"The immigrant steps in front of the racing hose cart; the driver swerves into a pillar, breaking his shoulder and the horse's leg.","predicament":"Someone's duty to spare a stranger costs them dearly and ruins something they love."},
|
||||
{"chunk":745,"story":85,"summary":"The beloved horse is shot; the firemen drag the immigrant back to the station and abuse him as worthless foreign rubbish.","predicament":"Someone grieving blames the helpless stranger who caused the loss."},
|
||||
{"chunk":746,"story":85,"summary":"A shopkeeper who claims many languages cannot place him and calls him a fool; the firemen kick him into the street.","predicament":"Someone nobody can understand is judged worthless and thrown out."},
|
||||
{"chunk":747,"story":85,"summary":"The stranger keeps returning to apologise and is kicked out daily, until the driver's small son befriends him.","predicament":"Someone despised keeps coming back to make amends until one person accepts them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":748,"story":85,"summary":"The boy sets a motor car running away; the stranger leaps on the remaining horse bareback and snatches him from it.","predicament":"Someone despised saves the life of a child belonging to those who scorned them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":749,"story":85,"summary":"The driver grips his hand; told the stranger is a Cossack, a kind of Russian, he promptly changes sides in the war.","predicament":"Someone's gratitude to one person changes their opinion of that person's whole people."},
|
||||
{"chunk":750,"story":86,"summary":"A sober, capable bartender loves his employer's daughter but cannot say a word to her.","predicament":"Someone competent at everything else is helpless before the person they love."},
|
||||
{"chunk":751,"story":86,"summary":"Speechless before her, he talks only of rain; two men in the back room spend their days mixing and discarding drinks.","predicament":"Someone shy manages only small talk with the person they hope to marry."},
|
||||
{"chunk":752,"story":86,"summary":"The men explain that to dodge a heavy duty abroad they dumped all their bottles into two barrels, one vile, one sublime.","predicament":"Two people stumbled once on a success they cannot reproduce."},
|
||||
{"chunk":753,"story":86,"summary":"The second barrel gave courage, ambition and nerve; they sold it by the glass until a whole country nearly declared war.","predicament":"Someone had one extraordinary success and has spent everything since trying to repeat it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":754,"story":86,"summary":"For ten months they have mixed every liquor they own trying to find it again, pouring each failure away.","predicament":"Someone keeps searching for the one missing ingredient they cannot identify."},
|
||||
{"chunk":755,"story":86,"summary":"The bartender repeats the daughter's remark about water; they realise the missing element and are soon arrested for fighting and singing.","predicament":"Someone's casual remark gives others the answer they could not find."},
|
||||
{"chunk":756,"story":86,"summary":"He drinks the last two spoonfuls of the golden blend, lifts the daughter off her feet, and announces they are to be married.","predicament":"Someone suddenly finds the nerve they lacked and says the one thing they wanted to."},
|
||||
{"chunk":757,"story":87,"summary":"A young wife proudly shows her friend the bruises her husband gives her, saying a man who does not beat you does not care.","predicament":"Someone mistakes cruelty followed by gifts for proof of love."},
|
||||
{"chunk":758,"story":87,"summary":"The friend asks whether it hurts and why he does it; she laughs that it earns her theatre tickets and silk.","predicament":"Someone asks another to explain a way of life they cannot understand."},
|
||||
{"chunk":759,"story":87,"summary":"She says he beats her when drunk; the friend confesses her own husband never strikes her and never takes her anywhere either.","predicament":"Someone compares their dull marriage with a violent one and starts to envy it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":760,"story":87,"summary":"The husband bursts in with bundles, theatre tickets and the promised silk waist, and the envious friend goes upstairs.","predicament":"Someone watches another receive the reward they believe is missing from their own life."},
|
||||
{"chunk":761,"story":87,"summary":"The friend cries without reason; her husband comes home, grunts at supper, and reads in his stocking feet.","predicament":"Someone feels neglected by a partner who is steady, dull and silent."},
|
||||
{"chunk":762,"story":87,"summary":"On the holiday her friend is merry in new silk; seized by jealousy, she resolves to provoke her own husband into striking her.","predicament":"Someone decides to provoke the reaction they think proves they are cared for."},
|
||||
{"chunk":763,"story":87,"summary":"She rails at him and strikes him twice in the face, closing her eyes and waiting for the blow she longs for.","predicament":"Someone deliberately picks a fight to make a quiet partner show feeling."},
|
||||
{"chunk":764,"story":87,"summary":"Her friend runs up to see; she sobs that he never touched her, and has instead begun washing the clothes.","predicament":"Someone's provocation is answered with a kindness that feels like a humiliation."},
|
||||
{"chunk":765,"story":88,"summary":"A tired father reading by the window refuses to play with his young daughter and sends her out to play in the street.","predicament":"Someone too tired to give attention sends a child out to find it elsewhere."},
|
||||
{"chunk":766,"story":88,"summary":"Years on, a gang leader bets he will take another girl to the dance, and his friend warns him not to cross his fiancee.","predicament":"Someone risks the loyal person who loves them to prove a point about who owns whom."},
|
||||
{"chunk":767,"story":88,"summary":"He wants to teach his fiancee a lesson for her jealousy and drinking; his friend recalls he gave her her first drink.","predicament":"Someone blames another for faults they themselves introduced."},
|
||||
{"chunk":768,"story":88,"summary":"She drinks whisky in a cafe and tells the waiter that if he takes the other girl to the dance she will kill him.","predicament":"Someone betrayed by the person they depend on vows revenge over drink."},
|
||||
{"chunk":769,"story":88,"summary":"She recalls sitting on doorsteps as a child with nothing at home, then sits and teaches a small girl a string game.","predicament":"Someone who had nothing as a child sees their own beginning in another child."},
|
||||
{"chunk":770,"story":88,"summary":"At the dance she steps out and stabs him, then runs, pursued down the street by a howling crowd.","predicament":"Someone driven past bearing turns on the person who shaped and then betrayed them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":771,"story":88,"summary":"She throws herself into the river; the narrator dreams of a heavenly court where she is brought up for judgment.","predicament":"Someone destroyed by circumstances is judged as though they alone were responsible."},
|
||||
{"chunk":772,"story":88,"summary":"The court discharges her and sends the officer after the guilty party: the father who sat reading while his children played in the street.","predicament":"Someone who neglected a child years ago is named as the true cause of their ruin."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":773,"story":89,"summary":"A police captain dismissed in a reform scandal has fallen to begging, and befriends another man as low as himself.","predicament":"Someone thrown out of a powerful post has sunk to the bottom with nothing left."},
|
||||
{"chunk":774,"story":89,"summary":"His companion was thrown out of a rich uncle's house; the two sit on a park bench, one cursing, one silent.","predicament":"Two people fallen from very different heights share the same bench and the same hunger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":775,"story":89,"summary":"Starving after a failed attempt at a free lunch, the former captain goes off to try one more scheme for food.","predicament":"Someone desperate for food goes out to try one last plan."},
|
||||
{"chunk":776,"story":89,"summary":"Left alone, the young man goes to the police to ask whether there is a reward for his friend; the sergeant throws him out.","predicament":"Someone starving tries to sell out the friend who shares their bench."},
|
||||
{"chunk":777,"story":89,"summary":"The captain returns splattered, having proposed to a fruit seller for her business; he would do anything, he says, except betray a friend.","predicament":"Someone willing to stoop to anything draws the line at betraying a friend."},
|
||||
{"chunk":778,"story":89,"summary":"A political agent offers the captain five hundred dollars to testify against his old superior; he refuses and drives the man off.","predicament":"Someone starving refuses a fortune for betraying a person who was once their friend."},
|
||||
{"chunk":779,"story":89,"summary":"The young man calls him a fool; then an agent tells the young man his uncle will restore him if he marries an heiress.","predicament":"Someone is offered their old life back on condition of a marriage they do not want."},
|
||||
{"chunk":780,"story":89,"summary":"The young man refuses the heiress and her fortune, and the two join the midnight bread line together.","predicament":"Someone who would sell a friend refuses to sell themselves, and stays poor."},
|
||||
{"chunk":781,"story":90,"summary":"The city swelters through a summer so hot that everyone talks of heat, baths and cool diets.","predicament":"People stuck in a hot city pretend they prefer it to the places they cannot afford."},
|
||||
{"chunk":782,"story":90,"summary":"A harassed man insists loudly that the city is the finest summer resort, and refuses a friend's invitation to go fishing.","predicament":"Someone loudly praises the place they are stuck in to hide that they cannot leave."},
|
||||
{"chunk":783,"story":90,"summary":"Alone at his desk he wonders about his friend's trout, and drifts into memory of a mountain summer long ago.","predicament":"Someone who denies wanting a thing can think of nothing else when alone."},
|
||||
{"chunk":784,"story":90,"summary":"At a mountain hotel, two young men, one rich and one not, compete for the same beautiful young woman.","predicament":"Someone with little money competes against a rich rival for the same person."},
|
||||
{"chunk":785,"story":90,"summary":"At a mock tournament she climbs a rock; he races his rich rival up the face and reaches her first to crown her.","predicament":"Someone outpaces a richer rival by effort and nerve for the person they love."},
|
||||
{"chunk":786,"story":90,"summary":"His clerk wakes him at his desk; he insists again that the city beats the country, and turns to the letters.","predicament":"Someone wakes from a memory of what they gave up and repeats the story they tell."},
|
||||
{"chunk":787,"story":90,"summary":"A letter from his wife reveals he stays in the hot city working so she and the sick children can stay in the mountains.","predicament":"Someone pretends to prefer hardship so the people they love will accept their sacrifice."},
|
||||
{"chunk":788,"story":91,"summary":"Two young women share a cheap studio in an artists' quarter; in November pneumonia strikes one of them down.","predicament":"Someone far from home falls gravely ill with only a friend to care for them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":789,"story":91,"summary":"The doctor says she has one chance in ten, and only if she wants to live; she has made up her mind to die.","predicament":"Someone gravely ill has given up, and their friend must find a reason for them to live."},
|
||||
{"chunk":790,"story":91,"summary":"The sick girl lies counting the leaves falling from an old vine on the wall outside, and says she will die with the last.","predicament":"Someone fixes on a sign and ties their own survival to it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":791,"story":91,"summary":"Her friend scolds her for the fancy and asks her to close her eyes; she says she is tired and wants to let go.","predicament":"Someone tries to talk another out of despair and cannot reach them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":792,"story":91,"summary":"The friend goes down to an old drunken painter who has always promised a masterpiece, to ask him to pose.","predicament":"Someone asks help of a failure who has talked for decades of one great work."},
|
||||
{"chunk":793,"story":91,"summary":"The old man scorns the fancy but agrees to pose; the two look fearfully at the vine as cold rain and snow begin.","predicament":"Someone gruff about another's weakness quietly resolves to help them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":794,"story":91,"summary":"Next morning one leaf still clings to the wall; it survives another stormy night, and the girl watches it.","predicament":"Someone who expected the sign to fail watches it hold against all likelihood."},
|
||||
{"chunk":795,"story":91,"summary":"She says it was wicked to want to die and asks for broth; the doctor mentions the old painter downstairs has pneumonia too.","predicament":"Someone recovers their will to live, not knowing the cost to another."},
|
||||
{"chunk":796,"story":91,"summary":"Her friend tells her the old painter has died of pneumonia: he painted that last leaf on the wall the night the real one fell.","predicament":"Someone who never achieved their great work gives their life to make one small act of hope."},
|
||||
{"chunk":797,"story":92,"summary":"A rising young man ignores a plain new boarder, until he sees her one evening dressed in deep mourning, beautiful and sad.","predicament":"Someone overlooked becomes interesting to another the moment they appear to be grieving."},
|
||||
{"chunk":798,"story":92,"summary":"He speaks to her on the steps; she hints that death has claimed not a relative but someone closer, and he sympathises.","predicament":"Someone uses grief, real or not, to be noticed by a person they want."},
|
||||
{"chunk":799,"story":92,"summary":"In the park she tells him her fiance was a real count with a castle, and that her father kept them apart.","predicament":"Someone tells an impressive story about a past love to someone they want to impress."},
|
||||
{"chunk":800,"story":92,"summary":"The count, she says, was killed abroad and her heart lies in his grave; he resolves to be her friend and more.","predicament":"Someone claims a dead love to make themselves more desirable to a living one."},
|
||||
{"chunk":801,"story":92,"summary":"She shows him the count's photograph in her locket and a larger one framed; he studies it with inscrutable eyes.","predicament":"Someone shows proof of a story to a person who recognises the proof."},
|
||||
{"chunk":802,"story":92,"summary":"Engaged a month later, he turns gloomy and explains that a great political boss has promised to come to the wedding.","predicament":"Someone wants a powerful patron at their wedding but has a secret reason to keep them away."},
|
||||
{"chunk":803,"story":92,"summary":"He says the patron must not come, for reasons he will not give, and asks whether she loves him as she loved the count.","predicament":"Someone asks their partner to choose them over a rival who may never have existed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":804,"story":92,"summary":"She confesses she invented the count to wear becoming black; he forgives her, since the photograph was the political boss himself.","predicament":"Someone confesses a lie the other had already seen through and forgiven."},
|
||||
{"chunk":805,"story":93,"summary":"A weary magazine sub-editor seeks relief in the artists' world of the city, and calls for a woman who belongs to it.","predicament":"Someone tired of their work seeks escape in a looser crowd."},
|
||||
{"chunk":806,"story":93,"summary":"Her flat is strewn with the wreckage of last night's party; she appears radiant and they go to a famous bohemian restaurant.","predicament":"Someone lives in the careless disorder that their circle calls freedom."},
|
||||
{"chunk":807,"story":93,"summary":"The restaurant's owner rose from a cheap eating-house by staging eccentricities that fashionable diners took for authentic bohemia.","predicament":"Someone grows rich by selling others an imitation of the freedom they crave."},
|
||||
{"chunk":808,"story":93,"summary":"At the round table sit painters, poets and a mourning widow; the woman is one of the acknowledged princesses of their circle.","predicament":"Someone holds a high place in a circle whose rules demand constant performance."},
|
||||
{"chunk":809,"story":93,"summary":"Dinner proceeds by courses of humour, wit, repartee and brag, each guest ready with their prepared performance.","predicament":"Someone must keep up with a crowd where every remark is a test."},
|
||||
{"chunk":810,"story":93,"summary":"The strain of seeming at ease shows between her brows; freedom there is a tyrant that forbids anyone to object.","predicament":"Someone exhausts themselves keeping up the appearance of being free and easy."},
|
||||
{"chunk":811,"story":93,"summary":"After the party she takes a midnight train to her parents' bare country cottage, and greets her stern father at sunrise.","predicament":"Someone leads a double life, escaping their free circle for a strict and silent home."},
|
||||
{"chunk":812,"story":93,"summary":"She peels potatoes, lies about her work, and sits two hours on a hard chair hearing theology read aloud, blissfully happy.","predicament":"Someone finds rest in the rules and hardships that others would flee."},
|
||||
{"chunk":813,"story":93,"summary":"The sermon damns her and she rejoices; that evening at dinner she tells her friends she has been away in bohemia.","predicament":"Someone escapes from freedom into strictness and calls that their holiday."},
|
||||
{"chunk":814,"story":93,"summary":"When a painter tries to kiss her she slaps him hard, breaking the one law of their circle, and the party breaks up.","predicament":"Someone refreshed by strict rules breaks the unwritten rule of a permissive crowd."},
|
||||
{"chunk":815,"story":93,"summary":"A village girl in the city, hearing the story, says that had the woman stayed home a week the painter would have got his kiss.","predicament":"Someone points out that the cure for one excess is simply too much of the other."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
|
||||
[
|
||||
{"chunk":816,"story":94,"summary":"A miner back from the far north with a fortune sees a young woman in the homeward crowd and resolves at once to follow her.","predicament":"Someone with money and little time decides instantly on a stranger they have glimpsed."},
|
||||
{"chunk":817,"story":94,"summary":"She catches her ferry, exhausted after a late dance and a trying day, and he gains the deck beside her.","predicament":"Someone tired and discouraged is approached at their weakest moment."},
|
||||
{"chunk":818,"story":94,"summary":"He speaks; she takes him for a masher, then, seeing his sincerity, lets him sit and teases him about his name.","predicament":"Someone used to unwanted advances cautiously allows a sincere one."},
|
||||
{"chunk":819,"story":94,"summary":"He earnestly describes the gold dust he has brought south; she mistakes his meaning, grows bored, and falls asleep on his shoulder.","predicament":"Someone pours out their heart to a person who cannot stay awake to hear it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":820,"story":94,"summary":"He asks whether she would rather a husband had money or love; she cries 'Cash!' in her sleep, and wakes to find him gone.","predicament":"Someone loses a sincere suitor through a word spoken without meaning it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":821,"story":95,"summary":"A ten-dollar note tells its own history, noting that the cultured seldom hold it long enough to learn its manners.","predicament":"Something passed from hand to hand has seen every kind of owner."},
|
||||
{"chunk":822,"story":95,"summary":"In a butcher's purse it meets a limp five-dollar note that spent the day in a shop girl's stocking in the heat.","predicament":"Money earned by hard work arrives worn, while other money never touches it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":823,"story":95,"summary":"It circulates fast through bars, a peddler's roll, a policeman's pocket and a gambling back room, and delights in it.","predicament":"Someone's fortune passes through every sort of hand, clean and dirty alike."},
|
||||
{"chunk":824,"story":95,"summary":"A gambling-house owner rolls it into a wad for a night on the town, and a gold note says he will spend lavishly.","predicament":"Someone about to spend money freely has been refused the one use they wanted for it."},
|
||||
{"chunk":825,"story":95,"summary":"The gambler offered a church fifty thousand and was refused as tainted, and now half the town follows him to drink it.","predicament":"Someone's offered gift is refused as dirty, and others gladly take it instead."},
|
||||
{"chunk":826,"story":95,"summary":"At a cafe he asks whether the refused money will buy drink; at one o'clock a ragged woman comes in and stares at it.","predicament":"Someone desperate appears silently before a person who has money to spare."},
|
||||
{"chunk":827,"story":95,"summary":"He bows and hands her the note; once a Treasury clerk who counted such notes, she thanks him and runs to a bakery.","predicament":"Someone who fell from a respectable post accepts help from a person society scorns."},
|
||||
{"chunk":828,"story":95,"summary":"A dollar from her change reports she fed a sick, half-starved child and prayed; the ten says there is no such thing as tainted money.","predicament":"Someone's help does its good regardless of where the means came from."},
|
||||
{"chunk":829,"story":96,"summary":"A young woman's father, an old cutter, dies after an accident, leaving her a dollar and his employer's letter offering help.","predicament":"Someone left alone with almost nothing holds a promise of help from a powerful stranger."},
|
||||
{"chunk":830,"story":96,"summary":"Evicted, she rides downtown with her dollar and the letter to seek the firm, which has moved to an address she lacks.","predicament":"Someone sets out alone to find the one person who promised help."},
|
||||
{"chunk":831,"story":96,"summary":"A kindly western rancher looking for a wife approaches her honestly; a policeman seizes him as a masher and drags him away.","predicament":"Someone is shielded from a genuine chance by a guardian who assumes the worst."},
|
||||
{"chunk":832,"story":96,"summary":"Preferring to support herself, she is offered a companion's post by a kind lady, until an association agent forbids her to accept.","predicament":"Someone wanting to earn their own living is stopped by people claiming to protect them."},
|
||||
{"chunk":833,"story":96,"summary":"She takes a cashier's place in a candy store, and a temperance crusader warns her that the sweets contain brandy.","predicament":"Someone takes honest work and is told it will damn others."},
|
||||
{"chunk":834,"story":96,"summary":"She gives up the job at the crusader's urging, who drives off in her carriage; next she tries sewing theatrical costumes.","predicament":"Someone gives up work at a reformer's word and is left with nothing."},
|
||||
{"chunk":835,"story":96,"summary":"A clergyman forbids her to sew costumes for the stage and promises only that the Lord will provide.","predicament":"Someone in need is advised by a moralist who offers nothing practical."},
|
||||
{"chunk":836,"story":96,"summary":"Striking girls warn her off a factory job; at last she finds her father's employer, who welcomes her warmly and offers a place.","predicament":"Someone blocked from every honest job at last reaches the one person who promised help."},
|
||||
{"chunk":837,"story":96,"summary":"He has her try on furs and a fine hat as a model, then telephones to reserve his usual private table for a new companion.","predicament":"Someone driven by every protector to the promised benefactor finds a predator waiting."},
|
||||
{"chunk":838,"story":96,"summary":"The narrator blames the reformers and associations, compassionate in heart but reverent of money, for losing such girls every day.","predicament":"Someone well-meaning closes every honest door and leaves the poor only the dangerous one."}
|
||||
]
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user