A student plans to write a literary analysis about “Saved by a Seal” by Theodore A. Cutting. The essay will focus on how the main character’s experience with Nab affected him. Which two sentences from the story give information that will help the student form a thesis statement for the essay? The liveliest seal that father and I ever caught, and the only one that ever got away from us after we had housed it, was Nab. Although father has been catching seals for zoological gardens and circuses almost as long as I can remember, and knows all their tricks both in water and on land, yet Nab was too sharp for him.
It was my vain attempt to recapture him that terminated in the most exciting experience I ever had with a seal.
Our seal-shed, which stood at the edge of the rocks fifteen feet above the surf, held in Nab's day eight occupants, all nearly full-grown.
The circus seals, which are caught and trained while young, had all been sold; and these we expected to place in the zoological gardens at Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Nab had not been in our possession long, however, before he demonstrated his exceptional abilities, and was straightway singled out to be trained, since a clever circus seal is usually worth twice as much as a mere menagerie animal.
Father generally takes the training into his own hands and sends me out for the daily supply of fish; but I took such a liking to Nab that I spent every evening teaching him.
He first drew attention to himself by his skill in stealing fish from the others. Although I always gave him the first mouthful, to keep him quiet, he would swallow it and be ready for the next before I could get a second fish from the sack. He would eye a shad in my hand as closely as he had once watched the young salmon darting about in the waters of Monterey Bay. And the instant I let go of it, intending to drop it into the open mouth of the next seal, Nab would snap it as it fell.