The Midnight Visitor

THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR

Read and Find Out     (Page 14)
Question 1.
How is Ausable different from other secret agents?
(or)
What great qualities made Ausable a successful secret agent? CBSE 2013
(or)
How was Ausable different from other secret agents? CBSE 2011
(or)
How is Ausable different from other secret agents? How does he deal with Max? CBSE 2012
Answer:
Ausable is different from other secret agents in more ways than one. He has a small room in the musty corridor of a gloomy French hotel. It was on the sixth and top floor and it was scarcely the setting for a romantic adventure. He was extremely fat. In spite of living in Paris for over twenty years, he spoke French and German with difficulty and had an American accent. Instead of getting messages passed secretly to him by beautiful girls, he got only a routine telephone call making an appointment. In these ways, he was different from the conventional notion of a secret agent.
He dealt with Max by inventing some stories and convincing Max to act on them, so that he could get rid of Max permanently.

Question 2.
Who is Fowler and what is his first authentic thrill of the day?
Answer:
Fowler is a writer and he had come to meet Ausable. His first authentic thrill of the day came when he saw a man in Ausable’s room pointing a pistol towards Ausable and himself.

Page 15
Question 3.
How has Max got in?
Answer:
Max had got into the room using a passkey or master key.

Question 4.
How does Ausable say he got in?
Answer:
Ausable said that he thought Max had got into the room through the balcony. He said that it was the second time in a month that somebody had got into his room this way.

Think About It                (Page 18)
Question 1.
‘Ausable did not fit any description of a secret agent Fowler had ever read.” What do secret agents in books and films look like, in your opinion? Discuss in groups or in class some stories or movies featuring spies, detectives and secret agents, and compare their appearance with that of Ausable in this story. (You may mention characters from fiction in languages other than English. In English fiction you may have come across Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, or Miss Marple. Have you watched any movies featuring James Bond?)
Answer:
Secret agents in fiction are projected like ideal men, ‘Tall dark and handsome’. They are usually well-built and keep beautiful women for company. They would smoke a pipe (like Sherlock Holmes) or a cigar and execute death-defying stunts (like James Bond). Movies based on James Bond show hi-tech gadgets which assist the detective in countering villains. However, there are some exceptions to this appearance of a secret agent also. A character named Feluda was created by Satyajit Ray, the famous Bengali filmmaker. Feluda was a tall athletic figure who relied on his superb analytical ability and observation skill.

Question 2.
How does Ausable manage to make Max believe that there is a balcony attached to his room? Look back at his detailed description of it. What makes it a convincing story?
Answer:
Ausable creates a detailed description of how his office was part a bigger apartment and how the next room had a direct connection with a balcony. His statement that . somebody else also broke into his office through that balcony earlier made it a convincing story. Ausable’s ability to think quickly and calmly in a situation of panic makes it convincing.

Question 3.
Looking back at the story, when do you think Ausable thought up his plan for getting rid of Max? Do you think he had worked out his plan in detail right from the beginning? Or did he make up a plan taking advantage of events as they happened?
Answer:
No, I don’t think that he had worked out his plan in detail earlier. He took advantage of events as they happened. Ausable made up a story of the balcony outside the room and as there was a knock at the door, he said that it would be the police. All these made Max desperate. He became restless and without seeing below, jumped out of the window.

EXTRA QUESTIONS

Short Answer Type Questions [2 Marks each]

Question 1.
Why had Fowler wanted to meet Ausable?
Answer:
Fowler was a writer and he had wanted to meet Ausable, a renowned secret agent. Fowler wanted to know how Ausable tackled dangerous situations. He was disappointed when he saw Ausable, as he didn’t look like what Fowler thought a secret agent should look like.

Question 2.
Describe Fowler’s reaction after entering Ausable’s hotel room. [CBSE 2014]
Answer:
Initially Ausable got a shock to see Max in his room. But he remained calm. Max also had a pistol with him, so Ausable didn’t try anything fishy. He just kept his cool and fooled Max by using his brain to invent stories.

Question 3.
‘Ausable shows great presence of mind in a situation of danger and surprise.” Do you agree with this statement? If yes, why?
Answer:
Yes, I agree with this statement, as Ausable showed great presence of mind when Max pointed a gun at him when he entered the hotel room with Fowler, which surprised and endangered both of them. He remained calm and cool, inventing stories as required to fool Max into jumping to his death.

Question 4.
Why did Max’s face turn black with anger? What did he want Ausable to do? [CBSE 2012]
Answer:
Max’s face turned black with anger because he felt that his plan of extracting the important document from Ausable was in danger of failing due to the knocking on the door, which Ausable identified as the police. He wanted Ausable to send the police away.

Question 5.
Why did Ausable frame the story of the balcony? [CBSE 2012]
Answer:
Ausable framed the story of the balcony to counter the use of the pistol by the rival secret agent Max to threaten him. The rival would have been able to get the important report about the new missiles if Ausable had not concocted this story.

Question 6.
How does Ausable manage to make Max believe that there is a balcony attached to his room?
Answer:
Ausable creates a detailed description of how his office was part of a bigger apartment and how the next door room had a direct connection with the balcony. His statement that somebody else had also broken into his office through that balcony made it a convincing story.

Question 7.
Who actually had knocked at the door of Ausable’s room? Why did he come there? [CBSE 2010]
Answer:
The waiter in the hotel where Ausable stayed knocked at the door of Ausable’s room. He had brought the drinks which Ausable had ordered when he arrived in the hotel with Fowler.

Long Answer (Value Based) Type Questions [8 Marks each]

Question 1.
What information did Ausable give about the imaginary balcony? Why did he do so? [CBSE 2013]
Answer:
Ausable created a detailed description of how his room was part a bigger apartment and how the next room had a direct connection with a balcony. His statement that somebody else had also broken into his office through that balcony made it a convincing story. Ausable did this to fool Max into thinking that a balcony existed just outside the window, as he knew that soon the waiter bringing the drinks he had ordered would be knocking at the door, which may prompt Max to jump into the imaginary balcony to hide.

Question 2.
Ausable was a clever secret agent. Do you agree with the statement? Justify your answer. [CBSE 2012]
Answer:
Ausable did not look at all like the conventional image of a secret agent. He was short and very fat. Besides, he spoke French and German which lacked fluency as well as the right accent; the American accent was quite palpable in his speech. However, Ausable had a very sharp and active mind because he invented two stories, one about a non-existent balcony outside his hotel window and another about the police arriving to give extra security to some important documents he was about to receive.
He was an intelligent man and a clever secret agent to be able to invent such stories on the spur of the moment in the face of imminent danger in the form of Max, a rival secret agent.

Question 3.
Why did Max scream shrilly when he dropped to the balcony? [CBSE 2011]
Answer:
A person screams shrilly when something unexpected happens to him. Here, Max screamed shrilly when he dropped to the ‘balcony’, because actually there was no balcony at all; it was only a figment of Ausable’s imagination. Ausable had described it so vividly, including its history and use, that Max was convinced there was a balcony just outside the window and tried to jump onto it without looking. As the room was on the sixth floor, Max would certainly have been died by falling from such a height.

Question 4.
A calm mind can help you tackle direst stress. Explain.
Answer:
Certainly, a calm mind can help us to tackle direst stress. If Ausable had panicked and done something fishy, then Max probably would have killed him. But Ausable kept his cool. Apart from this story, there can he some real life examples also. We are always told to focus when we are appearing for exams or not to panic in a difficult situation because such things hamper our thinking ability. We are not able to take proper decisions at this time. If we keep our mind cool and focus, then only can ,we find ways to get out of crunch situations.

Question 5.
Presence of mind is basically mental preparedness or the ability to think and act wisely in a dangerous or surprising situation. How would you react to the situation if you see a small child being knocked down by a speeding motorcycle or car, which speeds away after hitting the child?
Answer:
First aid should be given to the child at once. Public help may also be asked, if necessary. Depending on the seriousness of the injury, the child may be shifted to hospital. Simultaneously, we should try to note the license, plate number of the offending vehicle, so that the police may be intimated to arrest the criminal. If the child is conscious and can talk coherently, we should try to find out the name and telephone number of any of its family members to inform them about the mishap.