Horace Danby was a meticulous planner but still he faltered. Where did he go wrong and why?
Horace dandy failed to get enough information about real residents of the house. He was so much occupied with collecting information about house map, wiring and location of valuable things etc. that he forgot one main aspect. Though he was smart enough to know the dog’s actual name but overlooked getting identify of each and every residents of the house. Once he was in the problem then probably his clever mind gave a way to carelessness that leading him to open the safe without wearing gloves.
What does Horace Danby like to collect?
Did you begin to suspect, before the end of the story, that the lady was not the person Horace Danby took her to be? If so, at what point did you realise this, and how?
“Horace Danby was good and respectable — but not completely honest”. Why do you think this description is apt for Horace? Why can’t he be categorised as a typical thief?
What are the subtle ways in which the lady manages to deceive Horace Danby into thinking she is the lady of the house? Why doesn’t Horace suspect that something is wrong?
Who is speaking to Horace Danby?
Why does he steal every year?
Who is the real culprit in the story?
Why is Mrs Pumphrey worried about Tricki?
How is Ausable different from other secret agents?
How did the invisible man first become visible?
How did a book become a turning point in Richard Ebright’s life?
What kind of a person is Mme Loisel — why is she always unhappy?
Why is the lawyer sent to New Mullion? What does he first think about the place?
Why is Bholi’s father worried about her?
Why was the twentieth century called the ‘Era of the Book’?
Who does ‘I’ refer to in this story?
What does she do to help him? Is she wise in this?
How does he treat the dog?
What kind of a person do you think the narrator, a veterinary surgeon, is? Would you say he is tactful as well as full of commonsense?
What are Hari Singh’s reactions to the prospect of receiving an education? Do they change over time? (Hint: Compare, for example, the thought: “I knew that once I could write like an educated man there would be no limit to what I could achieve” with these later thoughts: “Whole sentences, I knew, could one day bring me more than a few hundred rupees. It was a simple matter to steal — and sometimes just as simple to be caught. But to be a really big man, a clever and respected man, was something else.”) What makes him return to Anil?
Do you think this is a real-life episode, or mere fiction? Or is it a mixture of both?
What is he “a fairly successful hand” at?
The course of the Loisels’ life changed due to the necklace. Comment.
What was the cause of Matilda’s ruin? How could she have avoided it?
Does Anil realise that he has been robbed?
Bholi’s real name is Sulekha. We are told this right at the beginning. But only in the last but one paragraph of the story is Bholi called Sulekha again. Why do you think she is called Sulekha at that point in the story?
What does he say about Lutkins?