NCERT Textbook - Keeping It From Harold | English Class 9 PDF Download

 Page 1


30
1.A. Before  you read “Keeping It From Harold”,  the teacher  will  encourage  you to
answer or discuss the following.
• What are the different weight categories in boxing?
• Have you ever heard the song whose lyrics go like....”He floats like a butterfly
and stings like a bee”? Who does ‘he’ refer to? He is also known as ‘The Greatest’
boxer of all times. What was his original name? How many times did he win the
World Heavyweight Belt?
• Find out from your friend if he /she watches WWE and who is his/her favourite
wrestler. Also find out why he/she likes this wrestler.
• Discuss with your friend as to why these wrestlers have such a large fan following.
Has the perception of the people changed over the century with respect to
those who fight in the ring?
1.B.  Discuss
• Do sports like chess, boxing and fencing require as much hard work and
dedication as other sports like cricket, hockey and swimming? Why do you say
so?
• Are all sports equally respected in the area where you live? Elaborate.
2. Now read the story
1. “Ma!” Mrs. Bramble looked up, beaming with a kind of amiable fat-headedness.
A domestic creature, wrapped up in Bill, her husband, and Harold, her son. At
the present moment only the latter was with her. He sat on the other side of the
table, his lips gravely pursed and his eyes a trifle cloudy behind their spectacles.
Before him on the red tablecloth lay an open book. His powerful brain was
plainly busy.
2. “Yes, dearie?”
fat-headedness : foolishness
F.4   Keeping It From Harold
                                       by  P.G. Wodehouse
Fiction
Unit
Page 2


30
1.A. Before  you read “Keeping It From Harold”,  the teacher  will  encourage  you to
answer or discuss the following.
• What are the different weight categories in boxing?
• Have you ever heard the song whose lyrics go like....”He floats like a butterfly
and stings like a bee”? Who does ‘he’ refer to? He is also known as ‘The Greatest’
boxer of all times. What was his original name? How many times did he win the
World Heavyweight Belt?
• Find out from your friend if he /she watches WWE and who is his/her favourite
wrestler. Also find out why he/she likes this wrestler.
• Discuss with your friend as to why these wrestlers have such a large fan following.
Has the perception of the people changed over the century with respect to
those who fight in the ring?
1.B.  Discuss
• Do sports like chess, boxing and fencing require as much hard work and
dedication as other sports like cricket, hockey and swimming? Why do you say
so?
• Are all sports equally respected in the area where you live? Elaborate.
2. Now read the story
1. “Ma!” Mrs. Bramble looked up, beaming with a kind of amiable fat-headedness.
A domestic creature, wrapped up in Bill, her husband, and Harold, her son. At
the present moment only the latter was with her. He sat on the other side of the
table, his lips gravely pursed and his eyes a trifle cloudy behind their spectacles.
Before him on the red tablecloth lay an open book. His powerful brain was
plainly busy.
2. “Yes, dearie?”
fat-headedness : foolishness
F.4   Keeping It From Harold
                                       by  P.G. Wodehouse
Fiction
Unit
31
3. “Will you hear me?”
4. Mrs. Bramble took the book.
5. “Yes, mother will hear you, precious.”
6. A slight frown, marred the smoothness of Harold Bramble’s brow. It jarred upon
him, this habit of his mother’s, of referring to herself in the third person, as if she
were addressing a baby, instead of a young man of ten who had taken the
spelling and dictation prize last term on his head.
7. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes upon the cut-glass hangings of the
chandelier.
8. “Be good, sweet maid,” he began, with the toneless rapidity affected by youths
of his age when reciting poetry…..
9. “You do study so hard, dearie, you’ll give yourself a headache. Why don’t you
take a nice walk by the river for half an hour, and come back nice and fresh?”
10. The spectacled child considered the
point for a moment gravely. Then
nodding, he arranged his books in
readiness for his return and went out.
The front door closed with a decorous
softness.
11. It was a constant source of
amazement to Mrs. Bramble that she
should have brought such a prodigy
as Harold into the world. Harold was
so different from ordinary children, so devoted to his books, such a model of
behaviour, so altogether admirable. The only drawback was, that his very
‘perfection’ had made necessary a series of evasions and even deliberate
falsehoods, on the part of herself and her husband, highly distasteful to both.
They were lovers of truth, but they had realized that there are times when truth
must be sacrificed. At any cost, the facts concerning Mr. Bramble’s profession
must be kept from Harold.
12. While he was a baby it had not mattered so much. But when he began to move
about and take notice, Mrs. Bramble said to Mr. Bramble, “Bill, we must keep it
from Harold.” A little later, when the child had begun to show signs of being
about to become a model of goodness and intelligence, and had already taken
two prizes at the Sunday-school, the senior curate of the parish, meeting Mr.
Bramble one morning, said nervously-for after all, it was a delicate subject to
broach, “Er- Bramble, I think, on the whole, it would be as well to-er-keep it from
Harold.”
decorous : polite, calm and sensible behaviour
Fi ct io n
Fiction
Unit
Page 3


30
1.A. Before  you read “Keeping It From Harold”,  the teacher  will  encourage  you to
answer or discuss the following.
• What are the different weight categories in boxing?
• Have you ever heard the song whose lyrics go like....”He floats like a butterfly
and stings like a bee”? Who does ‘he’ refer to? He is also known as ‘The Greatest’
boxer of all times. What was his original name? How many times did he win the
World Heavyweight Belt?
• Find out from your friend if he /she watches WWE and who is his/her favourite
wrestler. Also find out why he/she likes this wrestler.
• Discuss with your friend as to why these wrestlers have such a large fan following.
Has the perception of the people changed over the century with respect to
those who fight in the ring?
1.B.  Discuss
• Do sports like chess, boxing and fencing require as much hard work and
dedication as other sports like cricket, hockey and swimming? Why do you say
so?
• Are all sports equally respected in the area where you live? Elaborate.
2. Now read the story
1. “Ma!” Mrs. Bramble looked up, beaming with a kind of amiable fat-headedness.
A domestic creature, wrapped up in Bill, her husband, and Harold, her son. At
the present moment only the latter was with her. He sat on the other side of the
table, his lips gravely pursed and his eyes a trifle cloudy behind their spectacles.
Before him on the red tablecloth lay an open book. His powerful brain was
plainly busy.
2. “Yes, dearie?”
fat-headedness : foolishness
F.4   Keeping It From Harold
                                       by  P.G. Wodehouse
Fiction
Unit
31
3. “Will you hear me?”
4. Mrs. Bramble took the book.
5. “Yes, mother will hear you, precious.”
6. A slight frown, marred the smoothness of Harold Bramble’s brow. It jarred upon
him, this habit of his mother’s, of referring to herself in the third person, as if she
were addressing a baby, instead of a young man of ten who had taken the
spelling and dictation prize last term on his head.
7. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes upon the cut-glass hangings of the
chandelier.
8. “Be good, sweet maid,” he began, with the toneless rapidity affected by youths
of his age when reciting poetry…..
9. “You do study so hard, dearie, you’ll give yourself a headache. Why don’t you
take a nice walk by the river for half an hour, and come back nice and fresh?”
10. The spectacled child considered the
point for a moment gravely. Then
nodding, he arranged his books in
readiness for his return and went out.
The front door closed with a decorous
softness.
11. It was a constant source of
amazement to Mrs. Bramble that she
should have brought such a prodigy
as Harold into the world. Harold was
so different from ordinary children, so devoted to his books, such a model of
behaviour, so altogether admirable. The only drawback was, that his very
‘perfection’ had made necessary a series of evasions and even deliberate
falsehoods, on the part of herself and her husband, highly distasteful to both.
They were lovers of truth, but they had realized that there are times when truth
must be sacrificed. At any cost, the facts concerning Mr. Bramble’s profession
must be kept from Harold.
12. While he was a baby it had not mattered so much. But when he began to move
about and take notice, Mrs. Bramble said to Mr. Bramble, “Bill, we must keep it
from Harold.” A little later, when the child had begun to show signs of being
about to become a model of goodness and intelligence, and had already taken
two prizes at the Sunday-school, the senior curate of the parish, meeting Mr.
Bramble one morning, said nervously-for after all, it was a delicate subject to
broach, “Er- Bramble, I think, on the whole, it would be as well to-er-keep it from
Harold.”
decorous : polite, calm and sensible behaviour
Fi ct io n
Fiction
Unit
32
13. And only the other day, Mrs. Bramble’s brother, Major Percy Stokes, dropping in
for a cup of tea, had said, “I hope you are keeping it from Harold. It is the least
you can do”, and had gone on to make one or two remarks about men of wrath
which, considering that his cheek-bones were glistening with Mr. Bramble’s
buttered toast, were in poor taste. But Percy was like that. Enemies said that he
liked the sound of his own voice.
14. Certainly he was very persuasive. Mr. Bramble had fallen in with the suggestion
without  demur. In private life he was the mildest and most obliging of men, and
always yielded to everybody. The very naming of Harold had caused a sacrifice
on his part.
15. When it was certain that he was about to become a father, he had expressed a
desire that the child should be named John, if a boy, after Mr John L. Sullivan,
or, if a girl, Marie, after Miss Marie Lloyd. But Mrs Bramble saying that Harold
was such a sweet name, he had withdrawn his suggestions with the utmost
good- humour.
16. 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.
17. He was a professional boxer. That was the trouble.
18. Before the coming of Harold, he had been proud of being a professional boxer.
His ability to paste his fellow-man in the eye while apparently meditating an
attack on his stomach, and vice versa, had filled him with that genial glow of
self-satisfaction which comes to philanthropists and other benefactors of the
species. It had seemed to him a thing on which to congratulate himself that of
all London’s teeming millions there was not a man, weighing eight stone four,
whom he could not overcome in a twenty-round contest. He was delighted to be
the possessor of a left hook which had won the approval of the newspapers.
19. And then Harold had come into his life, and changed him into a furtive practitioner
of shady deeds. Before, he had gone about the world with a match-box full of
press-notices, which he would extract with a pin and read to casual
acquaintances. Now, he quailed at the sight of his name in print, so thoroughly
had he become imbued with the necessity of keeping it from Harold.
wrath : intense anger
demur : reluctance / objection
Mr John L. Sullivan : American Boxing legend (1858-1918), lasting the bare-knuckled boxing championship,
World heavyweight boxing champion from 1882-1892
Miss Marie Lloyd : Music hall artist 1870-1922
philanthropist : people who give donations or care about others
furtive : cautious or secretive
quailed : showed fear
Fi ct io n
Page 4


30
1.A. Before  you read “Keeping It From Harold”,  the teacher  will  encourage  you to
answer or discuss the following.
• What are the different weight categories in boxing?
• Have you ever heard the song whose lyrics go like....”He floats like a butterfly
and stings like a bee”? Who does ‘he’ refer to? He is also known as ‘The Greatest’
boxer of all times. What was his original name? How many times did he win the
World Heavyweight Belt?
• Find out from your friend if he /she watches WWE and who is his/her favourite
wrestler. Also find out why he/she likes this wrestler.
• Discuss with your friend as to why these wrestlers have such a large fan following.
Has the perception of the people changed over the century with respect to
those who fight in the ring?
1.B.  Discuss
• Do sports like chess, boxing and fencing require as much hard work and
dedication as other sports like cricket, hockey and swimming? Why do you say
so?
• Are all sports equally respected in the area where you live? Elaborate.
2. Now read the story
1. “Ma!” Mrs. Bramble looked up, beaming with a kind of amiable fat-headedness.
A domestic creature, wrapped up in Bill, her husband, and Harold, her son. At
the present moment only the latter was with her. He sat on the other side of the
table, his lips gravely pursed and his eyes a trifle cloudy behind their spectacles.
Before him on the red tablecloth lay an open book. His powerful brain was
plainly busy.
2. “Yes, dearie?”
fat-headedness : foolishness
F.4   Keeping It From Harold
                                       by  P.G. Wodehouse
Fiction
Unit
31
3. “Will you hear me?”
4. Mrs. Bramble took the book.
5. “Yes, mother will hear you, precious.”
6. A slight frown, marred the smoothness of Harold Bramble’s brow. It jarred upon
him, this habit of his mother’s, of referring to herself in the third person, as if she
were addressing a baby, instead of a young man of ten who had taken the
spelling and dictation prize last term on his head.
7. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes upon the cut-glass hangings of the
chandelier.
8. “Be good, sweet maid,” he began, with the toneless rapidity affected by youths
of his age when reciting poetry…..
9. “You do study so hard, dearie, you’ll give yourself a headache. Why don’t you
take a nice walk by the river for half an hour, and come back nice and fresh?”
10. The spectacled child considered the
point for a moment gravely. Then
nodding, he arranged his books in
readiness for his return and went out.
The front door closed with a decorous
softness.
11. It was a constant source of
amazement to Mrs. Bramble that she
should have brought such a prodigy
as Harold into the world. Harold was
so different from ordinary children, so devoted to his books, such a model of
behaviour, so altogether admirable. The only drawback was, that his very
‘perfection’ had made necessary a series of evasions and even deliberate
falsehoods, on the part of herself and her husband, highly distasteful to both.
They were lovers of truth, but they had realized that there are times when truth
must be sacrificed. At any cost, the facts concerning Mr. Bramble’s profession
must be kept from Harold.
12. While he was a baby it had not mattered so much. But when he began to move
about and take notice, Mrs. Bramble said to Mr. Bramble, “Bill, we must keep it
from Harold.” A little later, when the child had begun to show signs of being
about to become a model of goodness and intelligence, and had already taken
two prizes at the Sunday-school, the senior curate of the parish, meeting Mr.
Bramble one morning, said nervously-for after all, it was a delicate subject to
broach, “Er- Bramble, I think, on the whole, it would be as well to-er-keep it from
Harold.”
decorous : polite, calm and sensible behaviour
Fi ct io n
Fiction
Unit
32
13. And only the other day, Mrs. Bramble’s brother, Major Percy Stokes, dropping in
for a cup of tea, had said, “I hope you are keeping it from Harold. It is the least
you can do”, and had gone on to make one or two remarks about men of wrath
which, considering that his cheek-bones were glistening with Mr. Bramble’s
buttered toast, were in poor taste. But Percy was like that. Enemies said that he
liked the sound of his own voice.
14. Certainly he was very persuasive. Mr. Bramble had fallen in with the suggestion
without  demur. In private life he was the mildest and most obliging of men, and
always yielded to everybody. The very naming of Harold had caused a sacrifice
on his part.
15. When it was certain that he was about to become a father, he had expressed a
desire that the child should be named John, if a boy, after Mr John L. Sullivan,
or, if a girl, Marie, after Miss Marie Lloyd. But Mrs Bramble saying that Harold
was such a sweet name, he had withdrawn his suggestions with the utmost
good- humour.
16. 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.
17. He was a professional boxer. That was the trouble.
18. Before the coming of Harold, he had been proud of being a professional boxer.
His ability to paste his fellow-man in the eye while apparently meditating an
attack on his stomach, and vice versa, had filled him with that genial glow of
self-satisfaction which comes to philanthropists and other benefactors of the
species. It had seemed to him a thing on which to congratulate himself that of
all London’s teeming millions there was not a man, weighing eight stone four,
whom he could not overcome in a twenty-round contest. He was delighted to be
the possessor of a left hook which had won the approval of the newspapers.
19. And then Harold had come into his life, and changed him into a furtive practitioner
of shady deeds. Before, he had gone about the world with a match-box full of
press-notices, which he would extract with a pin and read to casual
acquaintances. Now, he quailed at the sight of his name in print, so thoroughly
had he become imbued with the necessity of keeping it from Harold.
wrath : intense anger
demur : reluctance / objection
Mr John L. Sullivan : American Boxing legend (1858-1918), lasting the bare-knuckled boxing championship,
World heavyweight boxing champion from 1882-1892
Miss Marie Lloyd : Music hall artist 1870-1922
philanthropist : people who give donations or care about others
furtive : cautious or secretive
quailed : showed fear
Fi ct io n
33
20. With an ordinary boy it would not have mattered. However, Harold was different.
Secretly proud of him as they were, both Bill and his wife were a little afraid of
their wonderful child. The fact was, as Bill himself put it, Harold was showing a
bit too much class for them. He had formed a corner in brains, as far as the
Bramble family was concerned. They had come to regard him as being of a
superior order.
21. Yet Harold, defying the laws of heredity, had run to intellect as his father had run
to muscle. He had learned to read and write with amazing quickness. He sang
in the choir.
22. And now, at the age of ten, a pupil at a local private school where they wore
mortar boards and generally comported themselves like young dons, he had
already won a prize for spelling and dictation. You simply couldn’t take a boy
like that aside and tell him that the father whom he believed to be a commercial
traveller  was affectionately known to a large section of the inhabitants of London,
as “Young Porky.” There were no two ways about it. You had to keep it from him.
23. So, Harold grew in stature and intelligence, without a suspicion of the real identity
of the square-jawed man with the irregularly-shaped nose who came and went
mysteriously in their semi-detached, red-brick home. He was a self-centred
child, and, accepting the commercial traveller fiction, dismissed the subject from
his mind and busied himself with things of more moment. And time slipped by.
24. Mrs. Bramble, left alone, resumed work on the sock which she was darning. 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.
On that day Bill would fight his last fight, the twenty-round contest with that
American Murphy at the National Sporting Club for which he was now training
at the White Hart down the road. He had promised that it would be the last. He
was getting on. He was thirty-one, and he said himself that he would have to be
chucking the game before it chucked him. His idea was to retire from active
work and try for a job as an instructor at one of these big schools or colleges.
He had a splendid record for respectability and sobriety and all the other qualities
which headmasters demanded in those who taught their young gentlemen to
box and several of his friends who had obtained similar posts described the job
in question as extremely soft. So that it seemed to Mrs. Bramble, that all might
now be considered well. She smiled happily to herself as she darned her sock.
25. She was interrupted in her meditations by a knock at the front door. She put
down her sock and listened.
formed a corner : attained mastery in; gained monopoly
comported : conducted oneself; behaved
a commercial traveller: firm’s representative visiting shops etc to get orders.
moment:  importance
Fi ct io n
Page 5


30
1.A. Before  you read “Keeping It From Harold”,  the teacher  will  encourage  you to
answer or discuss the following.
• What are the different weight categories in boxing?
• Have you ever heard the song whose lyrics go like....”He floats like a butterfly
and stings like a bee”? Who does ‘he’ refer to? He is also known as ‘The Greatest’
boxer of all times. What was his original name? How many times did he win the
World Heavyweight Belt?
• Find out from your friend if he /she watches WWE and who is his/her favourite
wrestler. Also find out why he/she likes this wrestler.
• Discuss with your friend as to why these wrestlers have such a large fan following.
Has the perception of the people changed over the century with respect to
those who fight in the ring?
1.B.  Discuss
• Do sports like chess, boxing and fencing require as much hard work and
dedication as other sports like cricket, hockey and swimming? Why do you say
so?
• Are all sports equally respected in the area where you live? Elaborate.
2. Now read the story
1. “Ma!” Mrs. Bramble looked up, beaming with a kind of amiable fat-headedness.
A domestic creature, wrapped up in Bill, her husband, and Harold, her son. At
the present moment only the latter was with her. He sat on the other side of the
table, his lips gravely pursed and his eyes a trifle cloudy behind their spectacles.
Before him on the red tablecloth lay an open book. His powerful brain was
plainly busy.
2. “Yes, dearie?”
fat-headedness : foolishness
F.4   Keeping It From Harold
                                       by  P.G. Wodehouse
Fiction
Unit
31
3. “Will you hear me?”
4. Mrs. Bramble took the book.
5. “Yes, mother will hear you, precious.”
6. A slight frown, marred the smoothness of Harold Bramble’s brow. It jarred upon
him, this habit of his mother’s, of referring to herself in the third person, as if she
were addressing a baby, instead of a young man of ten who had taken the
spelling and dictation prize last term on his head.
7. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes upon the cut-glass hangings of the
chandelier.
8. “Be good, sweet maid,” he began, with the toneless rapidity affected by youths
of his age when reciting poetry…..
9. “You do study so hard, dearie, you’ll give yourself a headache. Why don’t you
take a nice walk by the river for half an hour, and come back nice and fresh?”
10. The spectacled child considered the
point for a moment gravely. Then
nodding, he arranged his books in
readiness for his return and went out.
The front door closed with a decorous
softness.
11. It was a constant source of
amazement to Mrs. Bramble that she
should have brought such a prodigy
as Harold into the world. Harold was
so different from ordinary children, so devoted to his books, such a model of
behaviour, so altogether admirable. The only drawback was, that his very
‘perfection’ had made necessary a series of evasions and even deliberate
falsehoods, on the part of herself and her husband, highly distasteful to both.
They were lovers of truth, but they had realized that there are times when truth
must be sacrificed. At any cost, the facts concerning Mr. Bramble’s profession
must be kept from Harold.
12. While he was a baby it had not mattered so much. But when he began to move
about and take notice, Mrs. Bramble said to Mr. Bramble, “Bill, we must keep it
from Harold.” A little later, when the child had begun to show signs of being
about to become a model of goodness and intelligence, and had already taken
two prizes at the Sunday-school, the senior curate of the parish, meeting Mr.
Bramble one morning, said nervously-for after all, it was a delicate subject to
broach, “Er- Bramble, I think, on the whole, it would be as well to-er-keep it from
Harold.”
decorous : polite, calm and sensible behaviour
Fi ct io n
Fiction
Unit
32
13. And only the other day, Mrs. Bramble’s brother, Major Percy Stokes, dropping in
for a cup of tea, had said, “I hope you are keeping it from Harold. It is the least
you can do”, and had gone on to make one or two remarks about men of wrath
which, considering that his cheek-bones were glistening with Mr. Bramble’s
buttered toast, were in poor taste. But Percy was like that. Enemies said that he
liked the sound of his own voice.
14. Certainly he was very persuasive. Mr. Bramble had fallen in with the suggestion
without  demur. In private life he was the mildest and most obliging of men, and
always yielded to everybody. The very naming of Harold had caused a sacrifice
on his part.
15. When it was certain that he was about to become a father, he had expressed a
desire that the child should be named John, if a boy, after Mr John L. Sullivan,
or, if a girl, Marie, after Miss Marie Lloyd. But Mrs Bramble saying that Harold
was such a sweet name, he had withdrawn his suggestions with the utmost
good- humour.
16. 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.
17. He was a professional boxer. That was the trouble.
18. Before the coming of Harold, he had been proud of being a professional boxer.
His ability to paste his fellow-man in the eye while apparently meditating an
attack on his stomach, and vice versa, had filled him with that genial glow of
self-satisfaction which comes to philanthropists and other benefactors of the
species. It had seemed to him a thing on which to congratulate himself that of
all London’s teeming millions there was not a man, weighing eight stone four,
whom he could not overcome in a twenty-round contest. He was delighted to be
the possessor of a left hook which had won the approval of the newspapers.
19. And then Harold had come into his life, and changed him into a furtive practitioner
of shady deeds. Before, he had gone about the world with a match-box full of
press-notices, which he would extract with a pin and read to casual
acquaintances. Now, he quailed at the sight of his name in print, so thoroughly
had he become imbued with the necessity of keeping it from Harold.
wrath : intense anger
demur : reluctance / objection
Mr John L. Sullivan : American Boxing legend (1858-1918), lasting the bare-knuckled boxing championship,
World heavyweight boxing champion from 1882-1892
Miss Marie Lloyd : Music hall artist 1870-1922
philanthropist : people who give donations or care about others
furtive : cautious or secretive
quailed : showed fear
Fi ct io n
33
20. With an ordinary boy it would not have mattered. However, Harold was different.
Secretly proud of him as they were, both Bill and his wife were a little afraid of
their wonderful child. The fact was, as Bill himself put it, Harold was showing a
bit too much class for them. He had formed a corner in brains, as far as the
Bramble family was concerned. They had come to regard him as being of a
superior order.
21. Yet Harold, defying the laws of heredity, had run to intellect as his father had run
to muscle. He had learned to read and write with amazing quickness. He sang
in the choir.
22. And now, at the age of ten, a pupil at a local private school where they wore
mortar boards and generally comported themselves like young dons, he had
already won a prize for spelling and dictation. You simply couldn’t take a boy
like that aside and tell him that the father whom he believed to be a commercial
traveller  was affectionately known to a large section of the inhabitants of London,
as “Young Porky.” There were no two ways about it. You had to keep it from him.
23. So, Harold grew in stature and intelligence, without a suspicion of the real identity
of the square-jawed man with the irregularly-shaped nose who came and went
mysteriously in their semi-detached, red-brick home. He was a self-centred
child, and, accepting the commercial traveller fiction, dismissed the subject from
his mind and busied himself with things of more moment. And time slipped by.
24. Mrs. Bramble, left alone, resumed work on the sock which she was darning. 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.
On that day Bill would fight his last fight, the twenty-round contest with that
American Murphy at the National Sporting Club for which he was now training
at the White Hart down the road. He had promised that it would be the last. He
was getting on. He was thirty-one, and he said himself that he would have to be
chucking the game before it chucked him. His idea was to retire from active
work and try for a job as an instructor at one of these big schools or colleges.
He had a splendid record for respectability and sobriety and all the other qualities
which headmasters demanded in those who taught their young gentlemen to
box and several of his friends who had obtained similar posts described the job
in question as extremely soft. So that it seemed to Mrs. Bramble, that all might
now be considered well. She smiled happily to herself as she darned her sock.
25. She was interrupted in her meditations by a knock at the front door. She put
down her sock and listened.
formed a corner : attained mastery in; gained monopoly
comported : conducted oneself; behaved
a commercial traveller: firm’s representative visiting shops etc to get orders.
moment:  importance
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34
26. Martha, the general, pattered along the passage, and then there came the
sound of voices speaking in an undertone. Footsteps made themselves heard
in the passage. The door opened. The head and shoulders of Major Percy
Stokes insinuated themselves into the room.
27. The Major cocked a mild blue eye at her.
28. “Harold anywhere about?”
29. “He’s gone out for a nice walk. Whatever brings you here, Percy, so late? “
30. Percy made no answer. He withdrew his head.
31. He then reappeared, this time in his entirety, and remained holding the door
open. More footsteps in the passage, and through the doorway in a sideways
fashion suggestive of a diffident crab, came a short, sturdy, red-headed man
with a broken nose and a propitiatory smile, at the sight of whom Mrs. Bramble,
dropping her sock, rose as if propelled by powerful machinery, and exclaimed,
“Bill!”
32. Mr. Bramble - for it was he - scratched his head, grinned feebly, and looked for
assistance to the Major.
33. “The scales have fallen from his eyes.”
34. “What scales?” demanded Mrs. Bramble, a literal-minded woman. “And what
are you doing here, Bill, when you ought to be at the White Hart, training?”
35. “That’s just what I’m telling you,” said Percy. “I’ve been wrestling with Bill, and I
have been vouchsafed the victory.”
36. “You!” said Mrs. Bramble, with uncomplimentary astonishment, letting her gaze
wander over her brother’s weedy form.
37. “Jerry Fisher’s a hard nut,” said Mr. Bramble, apologetically. “He don’t like people
coming round talking to a man he’s training, unless he introduces them or they’re
newspaper gents.”
38. “After that I kept away. But I wrote the letters and I sent the tracts. Bill, which of
the tracts was it that snatched you from the primrose path?”
39. “It wasn’t so much the letters, Perce. It was what you wrote about Harold. You
see, Jane—”
40. “Perhaps you’ll kindly allow me to get a word in edgeways, you two,” said Mrs.
the general : (here) a servant who serves as an all purpose help/maid.
insinuated : suggested something bad indirectly
propitiatory : appeasing
vouchsafed : guaranteed
weedy : thin or weak
primrose path : pursuit of pleasure
diffident : lacking confidence in ones own ability
Fi ct io n