Answers – “The Income-Tax Man”
1. Conversational, easy and friendly in society.
2. He is thinking of a way of finding out about his business without the other one knowing he is doing it.
3. He tells him all about his business so that the latter trusts him enough to tell him about his own.
4. Giving talks to people.
5. His talks, his income from the newspaper, what he got from a book he wrote called The Innocents Abroad.
6. Three and a half to five dollars, according to the cover.
7. He feels uncomfortable because he thinks he has told him all his secrets for nothing.
8. A form on which to record his income for the purpose of income tax.
9. Impolite and formed with such wonderful skill that the oldest and wisest man in the world couldn’t understand the meaning of most of them.
10. Information about whether the narrator had been a robber, or whether he had set fire to anything and things of the sort.
11. By encouraging his pride, persuading him to admit he had earned more money than he had actually had.
12. Because, as an income-tax man, he is interested in wealthy people since their taxes will be higher than those of poorer people.
13. He talks to a wealthy man who had a lot of money but seemed to have no income.
14. He takes them, picks up a pen and rearranges the allowances so as to make him look as a poor man.
15. He lifts a two-dollar note out of his father’s pocket.
16. Because he thinks the wealthy man is regarded as someone with high moral value and social standing. Also, of course, because he really doesn’t want to pay as much as he should.
17. He decides to lie, even at the risk of losing all his self-respect.
Answers – “The Upper Berth”
1. Because the conversation was failing and they were all a bit drunk.
2. He was a man of about 35 who had the ability of attracting people’s attention whenever he spoke. He was strong and with a size above the average. When he started speaking, everybody stopped talking and listened carefully.
4. He used to like it because it had a lot of advantages, but he stopped liking it because of what happened to him the time he stayed at room 105.
5. He looked as if he was about to cry bitter tears or to drop Brisbane’s bag.
6. By giving money to them from time to time.
7. He thought he was drunk.
8. The night, because at that point people are so tired that they go to bed feeling no shame about it.
9. Because he saw he had a partner, and it was something that he had not expected.
10. He decided he wouldn’t talk to him or have any relationship with him whatsoever.
11. He felt a dampness in the room and an unpleasant coldness.
12. There was no dampness but the window was open.
13. He was surprised and wanted to know which room he was sleeping in.
14. His own room.
15. They had all gone into the sea.
16. If he had noticed anything strange in his roommate’s behaviour.
17. He told him he could stay in one of the officers’ rooms, but Brisbane declined the offer because he preferred to be alone in his own room.
18. Because he thought he wasn’t doing his job, since the window in his room was open once again.
19. To shut the window more tightly.
20. The window was open, so he closed it. He then heard a movement behind him and a cry of pain, so he pulled the curtains of the upper berth apart and put his hands forward to check if there was anything there.
21. He got hold of something that felt like a man’s arm but smoother, wet, and very cold. The thing he had touched suddenly moved and disappeared.
22. That he didn’t doubt his story. He also asked him if he believed in ghosts.
23. To find out the truth of what was going on.
24. The captain, because he thought that rumours about ghosts aboard wouldn’t be good for the reputation of the ship.
25. He got out of the window and into the sea.
26. He saw how the screw was slowly turning, even though no one was touching it.
27. He explained about the man that had gone out of the window and drowned in the sea. AFter that, it seemed, the room remained damp.
28. Something ghostly, like the body of a man long drowned but with the strength of several men.
29. His arm.
30. That it is not free.
Answers – “My Bank Account”
1. The clerks, the desks, the sight of the money… Everything.
2. Because his salary had been raised and he felt a bank was the only place for it.
3. He talked to an accountant and he wanted to see the manager.
4. Because he thought he was a detective.
5. His mysterious manner and the fact that he wanted to talk to him in private.
6. Because he thought he was a wealthy man, and instead of that, he was just an average man with an average salary who just wanted to open an average account.
7. He takes it all out.
8. He wanted six dollars but wrote fifty-six dollars on the cheque instead.
9. In a sock
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