A good time coming!
But when you came to the second “good,” let us suppose somebody knocks at the door and you say, “Come in.” What has happened in your reading? You have broken off one thought suddenly and another has come in its place. Let us see how such a sentence would look:
There’s a good time coming, boys,
A good—Come in.
Now, what is the difference between this sentence and those we studied in our last lesson? It is this: In the former lesson the new thought that was thrown in was really a part of the principal thought; but in this the new thought has no connection with the principal idea. In the previous lesson the group that was thrown in was a kind of explanation; in this lesson, the first picture is driven entirely out of mind by the second.
Breaks in the thought are of many kinds, and it is very necessary that you should be on the look-out for them. Here is an example of a kind you will find quite often:
“Halt!” The dust-brown ranks stood fast.
“Fire!” out blazed the rifle-blast.
The words “halt” and “fire” are commands given by the general; the sentence that follows each of these words tells us what happened after the commands were given.
Another kind of break is found in those selections in which there are two or more persons speaking. As in this: “Frank said, ‘Will you go to school with me?’ and his brother said, ‘No, I don’t like it.’ ‘Not like school?’ replied Frank, who was very much surprised, ‘I would rather go there than anywhere I know.’” You can see plainly that there is a break when the reader changes from one person to another.