The Midnight Visitor Extra Questions and Answers Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet

Here we are providing The Midnight Visitor Extra Questions and Answers Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet, Extra Questions for Class 10 English was designed by subject expert teachers.

The Midnight Visitor Extra Questions and Answers Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet

The Midnight Visitor Extra Questions and Answers Short Answer Type

Question 1.
How is Ausable different from other Secret Agents?
Answer:
Ausable was very fat. He looked very slow. He had an American accent. He had no pistol or any other arms. So, he was different from the others.

Question 2.
Who is Fowler and what is his first authentic thrill of the day?
Answer:
Fowler is a writer. His authentic thrill of the day is finding a man with pistol in Ausable’s locked room.

Question 3.
How has Max got in?
Answer:
Max has a pass key. He has got in through the main door.

Question 4.
How does Ausable say he got in?
Answer:
Ausable says that he got in through the balcony of the room.

Question 5.
Why did Fowler want to meet Ausable? Why was he disappointed?
Answer:
Fowler was a young romantic writer. He had a fine imagination about spying and secret agents. He loved adventure and thrill. So he wanted to meet Ausable who was engaged in collecting sensitive information. He was disappointed after spending a dull evening in a French music hall with a fat, sloppy man as there was nothing mysterious or romantic about him.

Question 6.
How cap you show that Ausable showed great presence of mind in situation of danger and surprise?
Answer:
Ausable showed a great presence of mind when Max pointed gun at him when he entered note room with Fowler. Though his looks were not mysterious but with his presence of mind he cooked up the story of non-existent balcony. Max, though smart, was befooled by Ausable and even lost his life.

Question 7.
Who actually had knocked at the door of Ausable’s room? Why did he come there?
Answer:
Henry, the waiter was knocking at the door in hotel. Infact, Ausable had ordered for a bottle of wine and two glasses. When there was a knock at the door he reached as if policeman was at the door. He had come there as Ausable had ordered drinks before coming into the room.

Question 8.
Where and why did Ausable take Fowler?
Answer:
Ausable brought Fowler in his room which was on the sixth floor in a hotel. He wanted Fowler to have some thrill and excitement as he was expecting some important papers to be delivered there.

Question 9.
For what purpose had Max entered Ausable’s room?
OR
Why and how did Max enter Ausable’s room?
Answer:
Max wanted those important papers from Ausable so he entered his room secretly from the main door. He had managed to get the pass key to open the door.

Question 10.
What story did Ausable frame about calling the police?
Answer:
As soon as there was a knock at the door, Max enquired of it. Ausable told him that he had already informed the police to check if everything was okay at intervals because of the important papers. Ausable told Max that they were on their duty to check.

Question 11.
How is Ausable different from other secret agents?
Answer:
Ausable is different from other secret agents in more than one way. He has a small room in the musty corridor of a gloomy French hotel. It was the sixth and topmost floor and it was scarcely the setting for a romantic adventure. Ausable was extremely fat. Inspite of living in Paris for over twenty years, he spoke French and German moderately and had an American accent. Instead of getting messages slipped into his hands by dark-eyed beauties, he got only a telephone call making an appointment. In these ways, he was different from the conventional notion of a spy.

Question 12.
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. Fowler’s first authentic thrill of the day came when he saw a man in Ausable’s room pointing a pistol towards Ausable and himself.

Question 13.
How did Max get in?
Answer:
Max got into the room with a passkey or a master key.

Question 14.
How does Ausable say he got in?
Answer:
Ausable says 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.

The Midnight Visitor Extra Questions and Answers Long Answer Type

Question 1.
Presence of mind is basically mental preparedness or the ability to think and act wisely in a dangerous or surprising situation”. Explain/Discuss with reference the story.
OR
“Presence of mind and intelligence are more powerful than gun”. How far is it true in case | • of Ausable, the secret agent?
Answer:
Ausable did not at all have the conventional image of a secret agent. He was short and very fat. However Ausable had a very sharp and active mind. When he entered his hotel room with Fowler he found Max with a gun in his room. Max was an agent of another organisation. Ausable, with presence of mind, invented a story of non-existent balcony. Max was convinced about existence of balcony and this led to r his tragic end. Ausable did not use physical strength but only his presence of mind.

Question 2.
“Telling a lie is sin and killing someone is a crime”. Why then Ausable told lies more than once and killed Max?
Answer:
Of course, morally Ausable had done wrong. But his profession allowed him to take such steps when the security and integrity of the nation were at stake. He did not tell lies and killed Max for his own sake but for his country. He is a true soldier to protect the country from inside.

Question 3.
“A procrastinatist is one who delays action and invites a tragedy to happen with him”. Is Max a procrastinatist, why, why not?
Answer:
No, Max is not a proceastinatist. He did not delay the action of his own. He had to wait until the paper he was seeking, arrived. He was overconfident and foolish enough to be duped by Ausable so simply and easily. He believed Ausable and did not confirm anything himself.

Question 4.
What was Ausable’s problem? How did he solve it?
Answer:
Ausable was a secret agent in an organisation. He had gone out with Fowler to spend the evening in a French music hall. When they returned to Ausable’s room in the hotel, they found Max standing in the middle of the room. He had a revolver in his hand. Ausable did not lose his calm. With unique presence of mind, he fabricated a story. He said that it was the second time someone had entered his room through the balcony under the window. Max took the concocted story as true.

Instantly, there was a knocking on the door. Max got panic stricken when Ausable remarked that there was the police. He had requested them to provide him extra security. Max was bewildered. He went towards the window and jumped on the non-existing balcony from the sixth floor. Max met with his death. Thus, Ausable’s problem was solved.

Question 5.
What impression do you form of Ausable as a secret agent after reading the story “The Mid night Visitor”?
Answer:
Ausable was a determined secret agent. He was dedicated to his work. He was agile in action even though he was a sloppy fat man. He was sane and shrewd. Being calm and cool headed by nature he did not lose his presence of mind when he found Max in his room with a revolver. It was midnight. He cooked up a false story of a balcony existing under the window just to befool the intruder.

Instantly they heard a knock at the door. Ausable remarked that the police had come to check on him and to provide him security. Getting nervous, Max rushed towards the window. He dropped to the balcony and fell down dead. He was patient, fearless, courageous, ready-witted and resourceful.

Question 6.
How did Max attempt but failed to acquire the secret paper from Ausable?
Answer:
Max’s organisation had ordered him to grab the secret report on missiles which the people of Ausable’s organisation had managed to get. He used a passkey and entered Ausable’s hotel room at midnight. He was holding a revolver in his hand since he intended to grab the report at pistol point. Ausable invented the fake story of a balcony extending under his window just to embarrass Max.

He remarked that it was the second time in the month that somebody had got into his room through that’ balcony. Instantly there was a knock at the door. Ausable’s remark that police had arrived to check on him unnerved Max.- To save his life, Max rushed towards the window. In hot haste, Max dropped to the non-existent balcony and met his tragic end. Thus he failed to acquire the secret paper.

Question 7.
“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 have beautiful women to accompany them. They would always smoke pipe or cigar and do death ‘ defying stunts. James Bond is a very famous character by Ian Fleming. Movies based on James Bond show hi-tech gizmos which assist the detective in countering villains. But there are some exceptions as well.

There is a character named Feluda which was created by Satyajit Ray, the famous Bangla filmmaker. Feluda despite being a strongly built man and adept in martial arts, relies mostly upon his superb analytical ability and observation skill, mostly referred to as the Magajastra or brain-weapon to solve cases instead of using physical strength or weapons.

Question 8.
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 tells Max that someone entered his room through the balcony earlier also. He also told him that ^ he had asked police to give him protection as he had some important papers with him. On listening this, Max became nervous and just wanted to escape from police and as a result, without noticing, he jumped . out of the window and fell down. Ausable’s ability to think quickly and calmly in a situation of panic, makes it convincing.

Question 9.
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 right from the very beginning. He took advantage of the events as they happened. Ausable made a story of the balcony outside the room and as there was a knock at the door at the same time, he told it would be police. All these events threatened Max. He became restless and without seeing, jumped out of the window hurriedly.

Question 10.
In this story, Ausable shows great ‘presence of mind’ or the ability to think quickly and act calmly and wisely, in a situation of danger and surprise. Give examples from your own experience, or narrate a story, which shows someone’s presence of mind.
Answer:
This story is in reference to the play ‘If I Were You’. Gerrard was captured by a criminal and when he pointed a gun towards him, Gerrard treated the criminal as a guest and trapped him in his confidence. He succeeded in making the criminal to run away as police was behind him. He told the criminal to run I through the exit door, which was actually a cupboard door. The criminal exited through the door and was caught in the cupboard.

Question 11.
Discuss what you would do in the situations described below. Remember that presence of mind comes out of a state of mental preparedness. If you have thought about possible problems or dangers, and about how to act in such situations. You have a better chance of dealing with such situation if they do arise.
1. A small fire starts in your kitchen.
2. A child starts to choke on a piece of food.
3. An electrical appliance starts to hiss and gives out sparks.
4. A bicycle knocks down a pedestrian.
5. It rains continuously for more than twenty-four hours.
6. A member of your family does not return home at the usual or expected time.
You may suggest other situations.
Answer:

  1. If a small fire starts in your kitchen a bucket of water may be poured on it.
  2. If a child starts to choke on a piece of food, his back should be patted and he should be taken to doctor.
  3. If an electrical appliance starts to hiss and gives out spark, the main power switch should be. turned off and electrician should be called.
  4. If a bicycle knocks down a pedestrian, he should be taken to the nearest hospital for first aid.
  5. If it rains continuously, we should take care of our drainage system.
  6. If a member of our family does not return home at the usual time we should contact immediately to know about him. If we do not get a clue we should take the help of police.