The Midnight Visitor · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: 135 MCQs with answers

As a man who fitted no description of a secret agent Fowler had read

The story begins by telling us what he is not.

A musty corridor, a gloomy French hotel, and a small room on the top floor

It is scarcely, as the narrator puts it, a setting for a romantic adventure.

That he is very fat

It says so twice in the same breath, and he wheezes when he talks.

Twenty years

He brought the accent with him from Boston when he came.

A young writer, romantic in outlook, who wanted to meet a real spy

He spends the whole story as a spectator.

A man with a small automatic pistol is standing across the room

This is Fowler's first authentic thrill of the day.

In Berlin

He says so while complaining that Max gave him a start.

The report on some new missiles that is being brought that night

He suggests, politely, that it will be safer in his hands.

Spying

Ausable uses the word when listing what Fowler had been told about him.

—

—

About half an hour

Ausable corrects him at once.

Twelve-thirty

Hence the thirty-one minutes.

Fowler jumps, and Ausable simply smiles

The smile is the first sign that he has seen an opportunity.

The police, whom he had asked to check on him

The knock is real; only the identity is invented.

A waiter with a tray, a bottle and two glasses

He said it was the drink Ausable had ordered for his return.

That there were no police — only Henry, whom he was expecting

He sighs as he says it.

That there is no balcony

Five words, and they explain everything that has happened.

—

He speaks French and German passably but keeps an American accent from Boston

Twenty years in Paris have made no difference to it.

Imaginative; having a fantastic view of reality

It is exactly Fowler's problem, and the reason he is disappointed.

Mysterious figures in the night, pistol shots and drugs in the wine

Ausable recites the whole list back to him, with enjoyment.

At a French music hall with a sloppily dressed fat man

He had been bored, and Ausable tells him so before he can say it himself.

An ordinary telephone call fixing an appointment in his room

The story's word for it is 'prosaic', which the glossary gives as ordinary.

A paper is coming that may some day affect the course of history

Several men and women, he says, have risked their lives for it.

He blinks, greets him by name and says he thought he was in Berlin

Keeping the tone ordinary is itself a tactic.

Slender, a little less than tall, with the crafty pointed face of a fox

Apart from the gun, there is nothing especially menacing about him.

Weapons directed by remote control or automatically

The report about them is what the whole story turns on.

1 and 2 only

The only gun in the story belongs to Max.

Wheezed — spoke breathing noisily and heavily

'Chuckled' is a quiet laugh, 'sloppy' here means carelessly dressed, and 'passably' means just well enough.

He is an American from Boston who has lived in Paris for twenty years

The accent is the detail the story gives to make the point.

Everything about Ausable is designed to disappoint a reader of spy stories

A good opening names the effect, then supports it with the concrete details.

A disappointed young writer meets an unimpressive spy and then an impressive one

The impressive-looking one is holding the gun, which is the trap the story sets.

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include at least six of: the opening statement that Ausable fits no description of an agent; the musty corridor and gloomy hotel; the small sixth-floor room and ordinary window; Ausable's fatness, wheeze and Boston accent after twenty years; his passable French and…

With a passkey, as he tells Ausable himself

He adds that knowing about the balcony might have saved him some trouble.

Through the balcony, for the second time in a month

He says it as a complaint about the management, not as a statement to Max.

The next apartment's, though it runs under his own window

He says it with extreme irritation, which makes it sound like an old grievance.

From the empty room two doors down, as somebody did last month

The reference to a past break-in makes the whole account feel like history.

Block off the balcony as it had promised

A grievance against one's own hotel is not the sort of thing people invent.

Ausable how Max learned of the report; Max how Ausable's people obtained it

Max adds that no harm has been done, since he will have it back that night.

That so important a paper deserved a little extra protection

A reason attached to a claim is much harder to doubt.

He bites his lip nervously, and then his face goes black with anger

Then he backs swiftly towards the window.

Send them away, or he will shoot and take his chances

He says he will stay out on the balcony until they have gone.

Max pushes himself free of the sill and screams once as he drops

The glossary's word for the scream is 'shrilly' — piercingly, in a high pitch.

1 and 3 only

There were no police at all — the knock was the waiter Ausable was expecting.

He corrects Max's estimate of half an hour to thirty-one minutes

A man calculating minutes does not sound like a man inventing a balcony.

Ausable never leaves his chair; Max climbs out and drops of his own accord

Nobody in the story ever touches Max.

Ausable never threatens anybody; he simply makes the window look like the safer way out

The answer turns on persuasion, so the opening should name it.

He supplies facts and lets his opponent reach the wrong conclusion

A grumble, an explanation and three true-sounding statements are the whole of it.

—

—

—

—

Set the tray on the table and deftly uncorked the bottle

He noticed nothing whatever, which is exactly the effect the story wants.

White-faced, he manages only the beginning of a question

He never completes a sentence in the last page of the story.

The room is on the sixth and top floor, so there was nothing to land on

The height was given in the story's opening paragraph and never mentioned again.

Nothing at all — Max is never mentioned again

The reader has a single shrill scream and the height of the room.

The ability to think fast and behave coolly and sensibly when danger takes you unawares

The textbook adds that it grows out of a state of mental preparedness.

2 and 3 only

There were no police at any point in the story.

A better story than the one he came looking for

He wanted pistol shots and saw a man win without leaving his chair.

That presence of mind comes from having thought about dangers in advance

It then lists everyday emergencies for students to think through.

There were no police at all; the knock was Henry the waiter

Ausable says so in his first revelation.

Five words at the end of the story rewrite everything that came before them

A good opening names the effect and then explains how it is achieved.

He supplied a story, a reason and three facts, and let his opponent do the rest

Nobody in the story is ever touched or threatened by him.

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the waiter with the tray, bottle and glasses and his complete unawareness; Fowler's white face and unfinished questions; the first revelation about the police and Henry; the second revelation that there is no balcony; the significance of the order of the tw…

The sixth and top floor, which is what makes the ending possible

A man dropping from a sixth-floor window has nothing at all to land on.

That he observes people closely and deduces a great deal from very little

Nobody has told him any of it, and he chuckles to himself as he unlocks the door.

Everything before it had been dull, and this alone was genuine

There is an irony in it too: it is the last thing in the story that is what it seems.

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Both are true, but the pistol and the passkey are not what makes Max look the part while Ausable does not.

So that the reader, like Fowler, underestimates the man who lives there

Every prop of the spy thriller is removed before anything thrilling happens.

That real drama lies in consequences, not in pistols and dark-eyed messengers

He asks whether there is not drama in the thought of a paper that may change history.

The reader shares his ignorance and so is fooled by the same trick

We are never inside Ausable's head, which is why the last line surprises us.

It is the first sign that he is far more capable than he looks

He blinks, greets Max by name and complains mildly — nothing more.

It keeps the tone ordinary, which makes the gun more disturbing rather than less

He murmurs his demand and offers a reason for it, as though discussing business.

He describes Fowler's whole disappointment without being told any of it

That habit of watching and deducing is what will get rid of Max later.

It teaches the reader to judge both men by their appearance, so that the ending can overturn it

A reader who trusts appearances is exactly the reader the last line is written for.

Because an ordinary window on the sixth floor has nothing outside it

Fowler's eyes go to it, and the night is pressing blackly against the glass.

He is presented as slow, heavy and unremarkable from the first line

The description of him has been doing this work since before Max appeared.

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: a description of the conventional fictional agent with at least one named example (Holmes, Poirot, Miss Marple, Bond or any equivalent from another language); the contrast in Ausable's appearance, accent, voice and surroundings; Max as the figure who does f…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: Max's appearance (slender, less than tall, fox-like), his pistol, his murmured demand and his justification; Ausable's fatness, wheeze, lack of a weapon and foreign accent; the contrast of action against talk; the earlier evidence of Ausable's observational…

It admits that he knows nothing about the outside of the room

He has also accepted, without checking, that a balcony is there.

Professional pride — he would rather be known to have used a passkey

The small proud clarification is exactly what tells an opponent what you do not know.

It was once part of a larger unit whose living room had the balcony

The dull architectural detail is precisely what makes it believable.

It is offered as a complaint to Fowler rather than as an argument to Max

Nobody has been asked to believe anything, which is why it is believed.

Thirty-one minutes — a pedantic touch that makes him sound too bored to be lying

The appointment was for twelve-thirty, and he answers moodily.

They will come in regardless, the door is not locked, and they are ready to fire

Three pieces of information, and not a single order.

Because a decision Max makes himself is far harder for him to doubt

Ausable never once suggests the window.

He twists his body so the gun still covers both men and grips the frame

He is still a competent professional right up to the last second.

That there was nothing outside the window to land on

The room is on the sixth floor, a fact planted in the opening paragraph.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Any suggestion from Ausable would have made the balcony suspect.

As events unfolded, beginning with Max's remark about the passkey

The balcony is offered as a grumble; it becomes an escape route only when the knock arrives.

He is the listener the balcony story is addressed to, which makes it sound like information

Ausable glances at him explanatorily, and Max overhears rather than being told.

Because Ausable only has to name it, not produce it — and Max cannot test it

Opening the door is the one thing Max dare not do.

Complain about it, give it a history, and let somebody else draw the conclusion

Ausable does all three, and never asks Max to believe a word.

It shows he still believes he is in control, and is merely inconvenienced

He is angry at the interruption, not suspicious of the story.

To place the window in the reader's mind without explaining anything

It is an ordinary window, with the night pressing blackly against it.

He would have found a waiter with a tray, and the whole plan would have collapsed

Which is exactly why Ausable makes the door sound more dangerous than the window.

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the complaint about the management and the second break-in in a month; Max's correction about the passkey and what it gives away; the six details of the account (not his balcony, the next apartment, the old larger unit, the former living room, running under…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the real knock and the contrast between Fowler's jump and Ausable's smile; naming the visitor as the police and giving a reason; Max's nervousness and the repeated knocking; the three statements (they will enter anyway, the door is unlocked, they will shoot…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Accept a well-argued case for either view. A case for improvisation should include: his ignorance when the light goes on; the balcony first appearing as a complaint rather than a scheme; Max's passkey remark as the turning point; the elaboration that follows; the ordinary talk tha…

The horror of what has just happened is left entirely to the reader

A man has fallen six floors, and a bottle is being opened.

Why a knock at the door was an opportunity for Ausable rather than a danger

He knew who it had to be, which is why he smiled while Fowler jumped.

The smaller shock answers Fowler's question and prepares the ground for the larger one

Reverse the two and the ending falls flat.

Physical courage in facing down an armed man

He never rises from the armchair, and never confronts Max at all.

The man who looks like a spy is destroyed; the one who looks like nobody wins

Every unglamorous detail of the opening was laying this trap.

Saying far less than the situation warrants, so the reader supplies the rest

A sigh, a bottle being opened and the phrase 'my young friend'.

Max, but also Henry, whose arrival actually decides everything

Max is the obvious answer; the waiter is the one that matters.

The story stays close to Fowler and never enters Ausable's thoughts

We share the ignorance of the one character who understands nothing.

In stages, as Max's remarks and then the knock gave him material

The balcony is a grumble first, an escape route second.

A is false, but R is true

There is no struggle anywhere in the story, so the assertion is false. The reason describes his real method.

It leaves the reader alone with what has just happened

He uncorks a bottle while a man lies in the street.

Because everything it has been withholding has now been supplied

Anything further would only weaken it.

Affectionate amusement — he is completely unshaken

He had used the same tone when teasing him about his disappointment.

It is planted early, never repeated, and pays off in the final line

A well-made twist uses only information the reader has already been given.

It is a small skilled act, performed while a man lies dead below

The competence of the gesture is what makes the anticlimax complete.

Everything needed to work it out is given to the reader in advance

The sixth floor, the passkey and the ordered drink are all on the page.

He is entirely unshaken — he sighs, explains, and calls Fowler his young friend

The waiter has just poured a drink, and he is about to have it.

He is the listener whose ignorance the reader shares, and the audience the lie is told to

The balcony story is addressed to him, which is why Max merely overhears it.

The restraint that makes the last line so effective

The scream and the height are enough, and the silence does the rest.

Thinking clearly is worth more in a crisis than looking impressive

The story argues it by outcome rather than by statement.

Exactly where Fowler is — having just understood everything at once

The point of view has been beside Fowler from the first paragraph.

Judgement about what another person will believe

The balcony works because he understands his opponent, not because it is clever.

—

—

—

—

—

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include the textbook's definition and at least four illustrations: reading the passkey admission; the calm manner (blinking, the Berlin remark, sitting heavily, thirty-one minutes); the improvised balcony and the recognised knock; the construction of a believable st…

—

Content 3 · Expression 2 · Accuracy 1. Content should include: the unglamorous setting and Ausable's appearance, voice, accent and dress; Max drawn to the conventional pattern; Fowler's disappointment as the reader's instruction; Max's own misjudgement and the careless passkey correction; the balcony convincing both Ma…