Read these lines: "A relic of the stone age, declared Coglan, warmly. We are all brothers. Some day all this petty pride in one s city or State or country will be wiped out, and we will all be citizens of the world, as we ought to be." Later a waiter reports: "The man with the red tie got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from. Originally from Mattawamkeag, Maine, he said." The ending is ironic because the man who

1. In the first speech he calls pride in a city or a country a relic of the stone age. 2. He claims to belong to the whole world and to no single place in it. 3. The waiter then reports a fight, and names its cause as remarks about the sidewalks and water of one small town. 4. That town turns out to be his own, and he would not stand for anyone knocking it. 5. So the man who denied local pride is the one who comes to blows over it, option B. 6. Option C would be ironic too, but the quoted lines never deny that he travelled. 7. Option A reverses him, since he had lived there and it is the birthplace he defends. _Source: O. Henry, The Four Million (1906), public domain_