II. Open the brackets and account for the choice of the casal form of the noun:

a)

1. Vivian Schnlitzer-Murphy had rubies as big as (hen + eggs), and sapphires that were like globes with lights inside them (Fitzgerald)

2. But as Soapy set foot inside the (restaurant + door) the (head + waiter + eye) fell upon his frayed trousers and decadent shoes (O. Henry)

3. A miserable cat wanders into the garden, sunk in spiritual and physical discomfort. Tied to its head is a small (straw + hat) – a (doll + hat) – and it is securely buttoned into a (doll + dress), from the skirts of which protrudes its long, hairy tail (Cheever).

4. Soapy straightened the (lady + missionary + ready-made + tie), dragged his shrinking cuffs into the open, set his hat at a killing cant and sidled towards the young woman (O. Henry).

5. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” he said, after a (moment + hesitation) (Fitzgerald).

b)

1. Of women there were five in Yellowhammer. The (assayer + wife), the (proprietress + the Lucky Strike Hotel), and a laundress whose washtub panned out an (ounce + dust) a day (O. Henry).

2. “The face,” said Reineman, “is the (face + one + God + own angels).” (O. Henry)

3. The people who had come in were rich and at home in their richness with one another – a dark lovely girl with a hysterical little laugh he had met before; two confident men whose jokes referred invariably to last (night + scandal) and (tonight + potentialities)… (Fitzgerald)

4. His face was a sickly white, covered almost to the eyes with a stubble the (shade + a red Irish setter + coat) (O. Henry).

5. During the first intermission he suddenly remembered that he had not had a seat removed from the theatre and placed in his dressing room, so he called the (stage + manager) and told him to see that such a seat was instantly found somewhere and placed in his dressing room (Saroyan).

c)

1. His eyes were full of hopeless, tricky defiance like that seen in a (cur) that is cornered by his tormentors (O. Henry)

2. The scene for the miserere mei Deus was, like (the waiting room + so many doctors + offices), a crude (token + gesture) toward the sweets of domestic bliss: a place arranged with antiques, (coffee + tables), potted plants, and (etching + snow-covered bridges and geese in fight), although there were no children, no (marriage + bed), no stove, even, in this (travesty + a house), where no one had ever spent the night and where the curtained windows looked straight onto a dark (air + shaft) (Cheever)

3. Their eyes brushed past (each other), and the look he knew so well was staring out at him from hers (Fitzgerald).

4. “Hello, Mitty,” he said. “We’re having the (devil + own time) with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt.” (Thurber)

5. “You know? Clayton, that (boy + hers), doesn’t seem to get a job…” (Cheever)

d)

1. He noticed that the (face + the + taxi + driver) in the photograph inside the cab resembled, in many ways, the (painter + face) (Saroyan)

2. Here he was, proudly resigned to the loneliness which is (man + lot), ready and able to write, and to say yes, with no strings attached (Saroyan).

3. He was tired from the (day + work) and tired with longing, and sitting on the (edge + the bed) had the effect of deepening his weariness (Cheever).

4. The (voice + childhood) had never gladdened its flimsy structures; the (patter + restless little feet) had never consecrated the one rugged highway between the two (rows + tents + rough buildings) (O. Henry)

5. But now Yellowhammer was but a (mountain + camp), and nowhere in it were the roguish, expectant eyes, opening wide at (dawn + the enchanting day); the eager, small hands to reach for (Santa + bewildering hoard); the elated, childish voicings of the (season + joy), such as the (coming good things + the warmhearted Cherokee) deserved (O. Henry).