Title 4 Keeping it from Harold.pdf ✅

FICTION Keeping It from Harold Extract Comprehension Read the following extract and answer the question that follow in one or two lines. I. “How about the money?” repeated Mrs. Bramble “Goodness knows I’ve never liked your profession, Bill, but there is this to be said for it, that it’s earned you good money...” a. What money is Mrs. Bramble talking about? Ans. She is talking about the money that boxing with Murphy would fetch Bill. b. Why does Mrs. Bramble not like Bill’s profession? Ans. She does not like Bill’s profession because it was too violent to be considered respectable. c. How has Bill’s profession been useful in a particular way? Ans. The money Bill has earned from his professional boxing has been instrumental in funding his son, Harold’s education. II. For the first time since Harold had reached years of intelligence she was easy in her mind about the future. A week from tonight would see the end of all her anxieties. a. Who is ‘she’ in the above extract? What anxieties did she have? Ans. ‘she’ in the above extract is Mrs. Bramble, Harold’s mother. Her anxiety was that her son was too sensitive a boy to be told that his father was a professional boxer and not a commercial traveler. Her fear was that her son might someday come to know the reality. b. How were her anxieties going to end? Ans. In a week’s timer her husband was due to fight his last bout as a boxer and thereafter he was to quit boxing for good. Thus she and
her husband would no longer have to lie to their son about his father’s real profession. c. How did her anxieties prove to be unfounded? Ans. Her son was happy to know that his father was a famous boxer and was instead upset with his parents that they had hidden the fact from him. This show how unfounded her and her husband’s anxieties were. III. The little man’s face becomes a battlefield on which rage, misery, and a respect for the decencies of social life struggled for mastery. a. The ‘little man’ here stands for Ans. Jerry Fisher b. The expression ‘face become a battlefield’ means Ans. that the face showed signs of mental conflict and emotional agitation. The little man was not sure how he should react in the situation. c. The little man was expected to show ‘decencies of social life’ by Ans. Behaving in a gentleman-like manner in the presence of a lady- Mrs. Bramble. IV. “You do study so hard, dearie, you’ll give yourself a headache. Why don’t take a nice walk by the river for half an hour and come nice and fresh?” a. Who speaks these lines to whom? Ans. Mrs. Bramble to her son Harold b. What does this extract show about the characters of the speaker and the listener? Ans. The speaker is a very loving, caring and doting mother and the listener is a very serious and hardworking student. c. When does this conversation take place? Ans. The conversation takes place in the beginning of the story when Harold has just recited a poem to his mother.
V. Nobody could help liking this excellent man; which made it all the greater pity that his walk in life was of such a nature that it simply had to be kept from Harold. a. Who has being referred to as an ‘excellent man’? Ans. Bill Bramble b. Why has he been called ‘excellent’? Ans. He has been called ‘excellent’ because he was one of mildest and most obliging men. c. What does the expression ‘his walk in life’ means? Ans. Bill’s profession as a boxer VI. He considered that he had been badly treated, and what he wanted most at the moment was revenge. a. ‘He’ here stands for. Ans. Jerry Fisher, Bill Bramble’s boxing trainer. b. ‘He’ consider himself badly treated because Ans. His trainee had suddenly left the training session hours before he was to fight the American boxer named Murphy. He did not expect his trainee to develop cold feet like that and felt that the trainee’s behaviour was an insult to him. c. He took his revenge by Ans. Revealing to Harold that his father was not a commercial traveller but a professional boxer known to the world as ‘Young Porky’ VII. They’d chuck it tomorrow, and look up to me like anything, I do call it rotten. a. Who is the speaker and who are ‘they’ here? Ans. The speaker is Harold and ‘they’ are his schoolmates. b. What would ‘they’ chuck tomorrow? Why? Ans. They would ‘chuck’ their habit of teasing Harold by calling him ‘goggles’ because from tomorrow onwards they would not dare to tease a boxer’s son.
c. What does the speaker call ‘rotten’? Why? Ans. Harold calls his parents efforts to keep the real profession of his father a secret from him as something rotten because it had deprived him of an opportunity to feel special and distinguished among his schoolmates as the son of a famous boxer. VIII. I’ve never known you do such a thing. You such a pleasure to train as a rule. It all comes of getting with bad companions. a. ‘I’ and ‘ you’ here stand for Ans. Jerry Fisher, the trainer and Bill Bramble, the boxer respectively b. By ‘such a thing’ the speaker means Ans. Bill Bramble’s leaving the boxing training session at the eleventh hour. c. The speaker’s expression ‘bad companions’ obliquely refers to Ans. Major Percy Stokes, Bill’s brother-in-low. IX. “You and me had better be getting back to the White hart.” Bill rose and followed him without a word. a. Who is the speaker in the first line? Why does he want Bill to accompany him to the White Hart? Ans. The speaker in the first line is Bill’s trainer, Jerry Fisher and he wants the boxer to go with him to the White Hart to resume his training. b. Why did Bill follow the speaker of the first line without a word? Ans. Bill was now relived that his son had found nothing wrong with his profession of boxing and was even ecstatic about it. So determined to go ahead with his bout with Murphy, he got up and followed his coach Jerry Fisher to resume his training. c. Why was Bill reluctant to go the White Hart earlier? Ans. Bill was reluctant to go the White Hart because he was afraid that if he went ahead with his bout with the American boxer Murphy, his son Harold would come to know of his real profession –boxing-