Left Holding the Baby

The bell rang for the starting of the train and the gentleman thus strangely left with the baby began to get rather fidgety, and anxious to return his charge to the mother.

The lady, however, did not again put in any appearance, and the train went on without her, the child remaining with the gentleman, who, on arriving at his destination took the child home to his wife and explained the circumstance under which it came into his possession. No application has, at present, it is understood, been made for the ‘lost child,’ which has for the nonce been adopted by the gentleman and his wife, who, it is said, are without any family of their own.

From ‘Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending Over More Than Fifty Years’ (1884), by Richard Pike.
Précis
The gentleman watched the preparations for departure with rising anxiety, and when the carriages began to roll the lady still had not returned. At Basingstoke, he had little choice but to go home and place the extraordinary facts before his wife. The kindly couple, being childless themselves, assumed responsibility for the baby, unless some claim should be made.
Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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