Midnight Visitor | NCERT Class 10 English Footprint without Feet
Key Points – Midnight Visitor
- Ausable was a secret agent but he didn’t look like that.
- He was very fat but not much tall but he is much alert in his mind.
- Ausable had a room on the sixth and top floor of a French Hotel.
- Fowler was a writer. Ausable told him that he would get an important report that night concerning some new missiles. This report could change the course of history.
- Fowler saw Max, another secret agent who threatens Fowler with a pistol demanding the report.
- Ausable handled Max cleverly. He told Max that he would complain to the hotel authorities about the balcony, which should be closed immediately.
- There was a loud knocking at the door. Ausable smiled and told that, that was the police.
- Max got nervous. His face was black with anger. He asked Ausable to send the police back. In the meantime he would go and wait on the balcony.
- Max jumped into the balcony. In this way Ausable got rid of Max.
Summary – Midnight Visitor
Fowler is surprised to see a secret agent Ausable who is too fat to be a secret agent. Ausable had a small room, on the sixth and top floor of a French hotel. Ausable tells him that he was going to get an important paper for which many men have risked their lives. When both of them reach Ausable’s room and Ausable switched on the lights, they saw a man standing in the room Fowler is scared to see Max, who is tall, and thin man and is holding an automatic pistol in his hand. It was the first thrill of the day for fowler. Max entered his room by using a passkey to take the report concerning a new missile. Ausable, sensing the danger, remains calm and with his presence of mind, fabricated a story about the non-existent balcony which Max believed to be true. Ausable seemed to be angry with the management of the hotel and complained that it was due to the balcony that somebody had entered his room the second time. Ausable told him that there was a balcony just below the window of his room after sometime there was knocking at the door. Ausable tricked Max by saying that it was the police who wanted to come inside to provide him protection. Max wanted to run away to avoid the police and jumps from the sixth floor of the hotel to the balcony but there was no such balcony as Ausable had told. Max fell down from the sixth floor and was killed. Then the door opened. The waiter entered the room with a tray of bottle of wine and two glasses. Ausable had ordered them. Fowler asked with amazement about the arrival of police. Ausable told him that there were no police instead; he was only expecting the waiter, Henry. The waiter left. Fowler did not know anything about the balcony. He feared that max would return soon. However, Ausable told him the fact that he would never return. Thus, fowler was much impressed by his cleverness and presence of mind.
Extra Question Answer – Midnight Visitor
Q.1 Who was Ausable? Where was he staying?
Answer. Ausable was a fat, clever secret agent. He had an American accent. He was staying on the sixth and top floor in a French Hotel.
Q.2 Who was Max? Why did he enter Ausable’s hotel room?
Answer. Max was another secret agent. He entered Ausable’s hotel room to get a report concerning a new missile.
Q.3 What did Ausable tell Fowler about the report?
Answer. Ausable told Fowler that he would see an important report concerning some new missiles and many men have risked their lives for this.
Q.4 Who knocked at Ausable’s room in the hotel?
Answer. Henry, a waiter of the hotel knocked at his room in the hotel who was ordered to bring a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Q.5 How is Ausable different from other secret agents?
Answer. Ausable is a secret agent but he is very fat and not much tall. His accent is also not proper. He appears to be completely different from other secret agents.
Q.6 How has Max got in?
Answer. Max has got in by using a passkey in Ausable’s absence.
Q.7 Who was Fowler? Why did he meet Ausable?
Answer. Fowler was a young romantic writer. He came to meet a secret agent, Ausable, in his office to gather necessary material for his book on secret agents.
Q.8 What great qualities made Ausable a successful secret agent?
Answer. Ausable was a secret agent in an organization. He was alert and resourceful. He was a cool-headed person and had a lot of presence of mind.
Q.9 Why did Ausable frame the story of the balcony?
Answer. Ausable knew that Max was scared. He framed the story of the balcony to convince max about the balcony which was actually non-existant. It helped Ausable to get out of a dangerous and critical situation.
Q.10 The balcony plays a significant role in the story ’The Midnight Visitor’, How ?
Or
How did the role of the balcony become significant in the story, “The Midnigh Visitor” ?
Answer. Max thought balcony as a means to escape from the police and Ausable created the balcony which did not exist so as to dupe (fool) Max.
Q.11 Give a character sketch of Ausable.
Answer. Ausable was a smart, intelligent man who was a secret agent. He was very fat. He spoke in an American accent which he had brought from Boston twenty years ago. He could speak French and German but possibly he was a spy who dealt in espionage (intelligence) and danger. He had a very important paper for which several men and women had risked their lives and even Max had come to him to pinch that paper. He was quick witted and had a great presence of mind. He cooked up a police story and of the balcony to befool Max. The story was so convincing that Max jumped down the window. Not for a moment did he think that it might be a fabricated story. In other words, he proved to be quite dangerous for Max though he had a great sense of humour when he talked to Fowler.
Q.12 Why did Fowler become white faced at the end of the story?
Answer. When Both Fowler and Ausable entered Ausable’s room, they saw Max, a man with pistol standing halfway across the room. They were taken aback. He had come for the same report that Ausable had come to collect. It was a secret document about some missiles. Ausable cursed the balcony, under the window saying that it was the second time in the month someone had come into his room through it. ’Fowler gazed out of the window, but saw no balcony. Max said that he had come in through the door, with the help of a key. Just then the door bell rang. Ausable said it was the police to check the extra protection ensuring safety of the papers. Max decided to jump out of the window into the balcony to evade from the police. As he jumped out, he screamed. There was no balcony to the window on the sixth floor. Ausable did not use strength but mind to overcome the danger. Thus, Fowler was left white faced at the end of the story.
Q.13 “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?
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 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.
Q.14 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 direct connection with the balcony. His statement that somebody else also broke into his office through that balcony made it a convincing story.
Q.15 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: Ausable is very clever the way a detective should be. He made the plan to get rid of Max from the very beginning which is evident from the story of the imaginary balcony. He knew the waiter would come to deliver his drinks. He planned carefully to create an imaginary policeman which would have compelled Max to jump on the non-existent balcony.
(Midnight Visitor)