Introduction
Last night Mrs Nickleby and her daughter Kate, fifteen, were entertained at the home of her brother-in-law Ralph. Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht were charming, and this morning Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck have been commissioned to invite mother and daughter to the theatre. Poor Mrs Nickleby has no inkling of the deal Ralph and Sir Mulberry have struck concerning Kate, and it does not involve marriage.
‘WE promised Sir Mulberry and Lord Frederick,’ said Pyke, ‘that we’d call this morning and inquire whether you took any cold last night.’
‘Not the least in the world last night, sir,’ replied Mrs Nickleby, ‘with many thanks to his lordship and Sir Mulberry for doing me the honour to inquire; not the least — which is the more singular, as I really am very subject to colds, indeed — very subject. I had a cold once,’ said Mrs Nickleby, ‘I think it was in the year eighteen hundred and seventeen; let me see, four and five are nine, and — yes, eighteen hundred and seventeen, that I thought I never should get rid of; actually and seriously, that I thought I never should get rid of. I was only cured at last by a remedy that I don’t know whether you ever happened to hear of, Mr Pluck.
Précis
In Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck do Sir Mulberry Hawk’s bidding and visit Kate Nickleby’s mother to inquire solicitously after her health, following the previous night’s party. Touched, Mrs Nickleby favours them with a tale of a stubborn cold suffered many years before, and offers to reveal the remedy. (53 / 60 words)
In Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Pyke and Mr Pluck do Sir Mulberry Hawk’s bidding and visit Kate Nickleby’s mother to inquire solicitously after her health, following the previous night’s party. Touched, Mrs Nickleby favours them with a tale of a stubborn cold suffered many years before, and offers to reveal the remedy.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, may, not, or, otherwise, ought, unless, who.
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