Class X English

Book: Footprints Without Feet

The Midnight Visitor
Notes

INTRODUCTION:

Ausable is a secret agent. He is expecting to get an important paper. Max, an intruder, enters his
room. He wants to get that paper from Ausable. He has a pistol in his hand. Ausable, being quite
normal, plays upon a trick on Max and gets him killed without any fighting and shooting.

THEME:

The lesson is based on the theme that one should not judge a person merely by his appearance. It
is a thrilling account of a secret agent Ausable’s one particular episode. Ausable didn’t fit any
description of a secret agent. He didn’t live up to the romantic picture of a secret agent that we
read in books or see in films. He was rather fat and sloppy and lived in a very small room on the
sixth floor. However, he was gifted with a rare presence of mind. His fertile brain could invent
and cook up stories and situations that would confuse his rivals. He cooked up the story of the
balcony and the arrival of the police. He outwitted and outsmarted his rival and enemy secret
agent, Max, who had come to take away a very important paper concerning some new missiles.
Through his presence of mind, Ausable was able to get rid of his rival, Max.

SYNOPSIS:

 Ausable was a secret agent. He was staying in a French hotel.

 A young and romantic writer named Fowler came to meet him.
 Fowler was disappointed to see Ausable as he was a sloppy fat fellow.
 His room was at the top and sixth floor of a musty and gloomy hotel.
 When they both entered the room and Ausable switched on the light, they found that a
man was standing in the center of the room.
 He had a pistol in his hand.
 It was the first thrill of the day for Fowler.
 The name of the man with a gun was Max.
 He said that he had come there to snatch the report from Ausable which he was expecting
to receive.
 Ausable remained silent and cool.
 He seemed to be angry with the management of the hotel.
 He cocked-up a story about the balcony.
 He told him that there was a balcony just below the window of his room and last month
too an unknown person had entered the room through that balcony.
 Max told Ausable that he had used a master key to enter the door.
 He wished that he should have entered through the balcony. It would have been much
easier.
 There was still half an hour for the report to arrive.
 There was a sudden knocking at the door.
 Ausable smiled. He said it must be the police because he himself had called them for the
protection of such an important report.
 Max was nervous. He jumped through the window to the balcony.
 But there was no balcony as Ausable had told.
 He fell down to the ground from the sixth floor and was killed.
 Then the door opened.
 The waiter entered the room with a tray, a bottle of wine and two glasses Ausable had
ordered for them.
 The waiter left.
 Fowler did not know anything about the balcony.
 He feared that Max would return soon.
 But Ausable told him the fact that he would never return.
 Thus, Fowler was much impressed by his cleverness and presence of mind.

VOCABULARY:

1. Secret agent – detective

2. Musty – foul smelling
3. Corridor – passageway
4. Gloomy – dull, dark
5. Scarcely – hardly
6. Accent – pronunciation, tone
7. Passably – tolerably
8. Wheezily – making a breathing sound
9. Spy – secret agent
10. Espionage – doing the work of a spy
11. Envisioned – imagined
12. Prosaic - ordinary
13. Figure – personality
14. Sloppy – untidy
15. Chuckled – laughed secretly
16. Frustrated – disappointed
17. Disillusioned – set free from false belief
18. Authentic – genuine
19. Thrill – excitement
20. Slender – lean and thin
 21. Crafty – very clever
22. Countenance- facial expression
23. Menacing – threatening
24. Murmured – muttered
25. To raise the devil – deal with aggressively
26. Bet on it – to make a challenge
27. Grimly – seriously
28. Nuisance – that causes troubles
29. Passkey – a master key
30. Inflection – rising accent
31. Glanced – viewed
32. Stiffly – in a hardened voice
33. Gesture – bodily movement
34. Sill – space at the bottom of window
35. Misted – distorted
36. Grasped – had a grip on
37. Shrilly – sharply
38. Deftly – cleverly
39. Uncorked – opened
40. Stammered – spoke haltingly

Character sketches to be done in English Notebook:

1. Ausable

Ausable was different from other secret agents in many ways. He had a small room in the musty
corridor of a gloomy French hotel. It was on the sixth and top floor and it was scarcely the
setting for a romantic adventure. He was extremely fat. In spite of living in Paris for over twenty
years, he spoke French and German with difficulty and had an American accent. Instead of
getting messages passed secretly to him by beautiful girls, he got only a routine telephone call
for making an appointment. In these ways, he was different from the conventional notion of a
secret agent. Physically, he was not good looking but mentally he was very agile and quick-
witted. He had a great presence of mind. He knew all the tricks of his trade. He was very quick to
react and could cook up stories that might fit in all kinds of situations. He did not lose heart in a
difficult situation when he faced a man with a pistol in his hand. He remained cool and cocked-
up a story about the balcony. He made Max nervous by telling him about the police. He was able
to convince Max that there was a balcony below the window of his room and that the loud
knockings at the door were that of the police. Believing this, Max jumped out of the window
only to cry for the last time in his life. In this way, he managed to kill the crafty Max without any
fighting and shooting and got rid of him permanently.
2. Max

Max was a secret agent and a rival and enemy of Ausable. He was slender, a little less than tall.
He appeared crafty and had the countenance of a fox. There was nothing especially menacing
about him except his pistol. He stealthily entered Ausable’s room to take away a very important
paper concerning some new missiles. Max was also slightly gullible as he easily fell into the trap
set by Ausable. He was easily misled by Ausable into believing that there was a balcony attached
to the room. He also believed that the knock at the door was done by the police. His gullibility
cost him his life. He was over confident just because he had a gun pointed at Ausable and
Fowler. Max lacked presence of mind, he was so focused on pointing the gun at both the men
that he did not look down for a second to see whether there was a balcony below the window or
not. He just blindly believed Ausable. He could be easily fooled because he was overconfident
and too proud. His pride blinded him and he thought that wielding a gun would give a further
edge over the seemingly slow Ausable. However, despite his apparent pride and confidence, Max
was utterly unsuccessful. So, we can say that Max was “a little spy” before Ausable.

3. Fowler

Fowler was a young and romantic writer who was looking for some excitement in the company
of a secret agent like Ausable. He wanted to write a book on detectives. Fowler had formed a
picture of a detective like James Bond. According to his imagination, the detective would be
young with attractive personality. He assumed a detective to be surrounded by equipment related
to his field. But he was devastated when he met Ausable who was sloppy and lived on the top
floor of a gloomy French hotel. He found Ausable not cracking pistols or surrounded by dark-
eyed beauties. He felt let down after meeting Ausable who was just opposite to his imagination.
However, Fowler got his first authentic thrill of the day when he accompanied Ausable to his
room and saw a man (Max) holding a gun standing in the room. At this time Fowler felt that the
life of a secret agent could be exciting. He found that Ausable was not at all perturbed. He
cocked-up a story about the balcony outside his window. When the waiter knocked at the door,
Ausable told Max that it would be the police. He told him that he had called the police for the
security of the important papers. Hearing this Max jumped outside the window to the balcony.
But there was no balcony. He fell down from the sixth floor and died. Thus, Fowler was thrilled
to see all this. So, towards the end of the story, he was not disappointed with Ausable.

Value points:

 Ausable is the protagonist of the story. He is a secret agent, dealing in espionage who
defied the idea of a stereotypical secret agent, disorganized, fat and lethargic.
 His rival Max, is a lithe and rugged agent.
 Fowler, a writer, fascinated by the world of espionage begins a conversation with
Ausable and goes back with him to his hotel room but both are cornered by Max.
 Ausable handles the situation beautifully by bluffing that the cops are on the way and
stays ice cold, even in the face of certain death.
 He threatens Ausable with death if he does not give up some documents.
 A knock at the door sets off Ausable’s sharp mind.
 He bluffs that it was the police he had called for the safety of the documents.
 Max jumps out of the window, hurtling to an uncertain fate.
 However, it was just a waiter with Ausable’s drinks, once again proving that one should
never judge a book by its cover.