Why is he tempted to keep Tricki on as a permanent guest?
Mrs Pumphrey had started bringing eggs to build tricki’s strength along with wine bottles and brandy. The narrator and his partners started enjoying the eggs, wine and brandy which was bring up by Mrs Pumphrey for tricki. According to the narrator, they were days of deep content for them that was started with the extra egg in the morning, then the midday wine and then finally finishing the day with brandy. that is why the narrator was tempted to keep Tricki on as a permanent guest.
Do you think this is a real-life episode, or mere fiction? Or is it a mixture of both?
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?
How does he treat the dog?
Is the narrator as rich as Tricki’s mistress?
Do you think Tricki was happy to go home? What do you think will happen now?
Why is Mrs Pumphrey worried about Tricki?
What does she do to help him? Is she wise in this?
Who does ‘I’ refer to in this story?
Why does Mrs Pumphrey think the dog’s recovery is “a triumph of surgery”?
How is Ausable different from other secret agents?
What does Horace Danby like to collect?
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?
Who is Fowler and what is his first authentic thrill of the day?
“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?)
Horace Danby was a meticulous planner but still he faltered. Where did he go wrong and why?
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?
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?
What does Horace Danby like to collect?
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?