Neither choice is wrong.  On the surface, my first impression is as follows:  1) The simple past seems to work here as an indication that the narrator thinks we should be acquainted with the event (a night-before dragging mentioned previously).  It might also be a one-time exceptional counter-example to her otherwise careful habits of neatness.  In this reading things get better after breakfast and in the short term.  2) The past perfect also works, but seems to indicate that the narrator wants to keep the sequence of events straight, like he intends to follow up on her progress toward a less unkempt attitude.  The end of paragraph suggests that this latter choice would make it a longer process so that we should expect events of a similar nature (falling in with pirates?) to follow. 

 

Both choices place the dragging event in the past, before breakfast.  The simple past does not make the time sequence explicit, so somehow not important.  The reader is left to infer the sequence from the context.  The past perfect places the two events in sequence explicitly, so invites the reader to note that the before and after situations are somehow important as they relate to each other in time. 

 

 

Brimstone, by Robert B. Parker, c.2009.                                   Chapter 7   WE TOOK ALLIE TO BREAKFAST in the cook tent.  With her dress washed and her hair combed, she looked a little better than she ___  when we dragged her out of the Barbary Coast Cafe'. But she didn't look good.  <end of paragraph>   Grammarians,   Which word should fill the blank in the quote above, had or did? ("looked" is an obvious possibility but Parker didn't use it.)   What rule applies to the choice and/or what is the explanation you might give a student for the choice?   .brad.08nov09.

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