er
friend of what had happened. Then follows this last sentence of the
story:--

"'Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were false. At most they were worth
five hundred francs!'"

The periodic pattern of Guy de Maupassant was sedulously copied by O.
Henry; but this popular contributor to the American magazines went
even further than his master and developed a double surprise to be
delivered suddenly at the conclusion of the narrative. A typical
example of his work is "The Gift of the Magi," wherein an unexpected
outcome is immediately capped by a second outcome still more
unexpected. The success of O. Henry with the reading public may be
attributed mainly to his cleverness in taking full advantage of the
powerful expedient of emphasis by terminal position. His technical
adroitness may be studied best by reading rapidly the final paragraphs
of any hundred of his stories. He had the happy faculty of saying last
the best and brightest thing he had to say.

=2. Emphasis by Initial Position.=--Next to the last position, the
most emphatic place in a brief narrative, or section of a narrative,
is of course the first. The mind of the reader receives with an
especial vividness whatever is presented to it at the outset. For this
reason it is necessary in the short-story, and advisable in the
chapters of a novel, to begin with material that not only is
inherently essential, but also strikes the key-note of the narrative
that is to follow. Edgar Allan Poe is especially artistic in applying
this principle of emphasis by initial position. We have already
quoted, in another connection, the solemn opening of "The Fall of the
House of Usher," with its suggestion of immitigable gloom of setting
as the dominant note of the narrative. In "The Cask of Amontillado,"
wherein the thing to be emphasized is the element of action, Poe
begins with this sentence: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had
borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed
revenge": and we know already that the story is to set forth a signal
act of vengeance. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," which is a study of
murderous madness, and deals primarily with the element of character,
the author opens thus:--

"True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but
why _will_ you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the