Read this excerpt from "The All-American Slurp." Father, being an engineer, was always systematic. He took out a pocket French dictionary. "They told me that most of the items would be in French, so I came prepared." He even had a pocket flashlight, the size of a marking pen. While Mother held the flashlight over the menu, he looked up the items that were in French. What story element does the author develop in this excerpt?

B). Characterization of Mr. Lin.

Explanation:

Characterization is one of the key elements of a narrative through which the author develops the characters and their traits in the narrative that allows the readers to have an understanding and perception about them.

In the given excerpt, the 'characterization of Mr. Lin' is the story element that has been developed by the author. It involves the details about his character from third-person perspective that tells the audience about his character(he is a father and engineer'), behavior(likes to read French which is reflected through 'pocket French dictionary'), etc. It allows the author to develop his character through the details that would allow the readers to understand his personality. Thus, option B is the correct answer.

source text: from the sketch here given it will be seen, that our good grandmothers differed considerably in their ideas of a fine figure, from their scantily dressed descendants of the present day. a fine lady, in those times, waddled under more clothes even on a fair summer's day, than would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball room. nor were they the less admired by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. on the contrary, the greatness of a lover's passion seemed to increase in proportion to the magnitude of its object—and a voluminous damsel, arrayed in a dozen of petticoats, was declared by a low-dutch sonnetteer of the province, to be radiant as a sunflower, and luxuriant as a full blown cabbage. certain it is, that in those days, the heart of a lover could not contain more than one lady at a time; whereas the heart of a modern gallant has often room enough to accommodate half a dozen - - the reason of which i conclude to be, either that the hearts of the gentlemen have grown larger, or the persons of the ladies smaller — this however is a question for physiologists to determine. add punctuation to the following excerpt. writing under the name of diedrich knickerbocker washington irving aimed his potent satire at as diverse topics as political rivals such as thomas jefferson to the very ideal of looking back on the past affectionately: a fine lady, in those times, waddled under more clothes even on a fair summer's day, than would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball room. a voluminous damsel, arrayed in a dozen of petticoats, was declared by a low-dutch sonnetteer of the province, to be radiant as a sunflower, and luxuriant as a full blown cabbage. in those days, the heart of a lover could not contain more than one lady at a time; whereas the heart of a modern gallant has often room enough to accommodate half a dozen

d. must, like a wh_re, unpack my heart with words