SHANTI ASIATIC SCHOOL, JAIPUR

Class :-VIII
English Reader (Notebook work)

Ch-11

That Little Square Box

-by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

New Words

1.suspicious 11. shudder

2. solitude 12. whirl

3. colossal 13. confronted

4. crouched 14. procrastinate

5. glanced 15. villains

6.engrossed 16. screamed

7. trigger 17. staggered

8. anxiety 18. confound

9. fumbling 19. fatal

10. fuse 20. prejudice

Word meanings:-

1. solitude- a state of being alone that the speaker enjoys

2. colossal- extremely large
3. brisk air- appearance of being quick, determined and practical
4. engrossed- so interested in something that they did not notice anything around them
5. curious- strange or unusual
6. fumbling- handling the box clumsily or carelessly
7. fuse- the object or material that is lit to make a bomb explode
8. confronted- be face to face with someone threatening and aggressive

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9. procrastinate- delay doing something that he should do because he does not want to or is
afraid to
10. ghastly- very unpleasant and frightening
11. sensation- extreme and widespread surprise and excitement
12. fatal- causing death
13. staggered – almost fell over because of shock

Question Answers

Q1. Who did the speaker think the two men were? What did he think they were up to?

Ans. The speaker thought that the two men were agents of some terror group who intended
to sacrifice themselves and their fellow passengers in an explosion for furthering a
misguided agenda. By overhearing their cryptic conversation, the speaker suspected that they
were carrying a bomb with them in the suspicious little square box.

Q2. …….a whirl of conflicting ideas was battling in my mind.

(a) What were the different ideas that the speaker could not decide between?

Ans. The speaker was deliberating in his mind about the correct course of action, given
his suspicion about the explosive and the two men. He wondered if he should accuse
them directly before the Captain and the passengers or if he should seek private audience
with the Captain. He pondered over the latter for some time before deciding against it.
The possibility of being interviewed by a stranger and confronted by the two suspects did
not particularly appeal to him.

(b) What did he finally decide? Why?

Ans. He finally decided to follow the two men very closely and gather more intelligence
before making the matter public.

Q3. How slowly the moments seemed to pass! I could count them by the throbbing of my
heart.

(a) Where was the speaker?

Ans. The speaker was hiding in one of the lifeboats hung over the deck in an attempt to
eavesdrop on the conversation of the two suspicious men.

(b) How was the speaker feeling at the moment? Why?

Ans. The speaker lay tightly wound in a knot of apprehension and mortal fear as he
listened to the cryptic words of the two men. It convinced him that they were minutes
away from blowing up the ship.
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Q4. Death stared me in the face, whether I did or did not give the alarm.

(a) Why did the speaker think he was about to die?

Ans. The speaker thought that he was about to die as the two men discussed the dropping
of a trigger. They also boasted of how it could create a sensation on land, making
newspaper headlines.

(b) Why did he think there was no chance of living?

Ans. He thought that there was no chance of surviving because if it did turn out to be an
explosive, he would be very close to the explosion and would definitely loose his life.

Q5. What do you think the two men thought of the speaker when he jumped out in front of
them? Which lines from the text support your answer?

Ans. The text tells us that the two men “staggered backwards” or were rather taken aback
when they saw the speaker emerge from the darkness, pouncing on them and yelling at them
to stop. The speaker may have seemed like a ghostly apparition to them with the “moonlight
streaming upon (his) pale face”. Then they thought he was mad because he kept talking
about having “the blood of two hundred upon your souls” when they had simply intended to
engage in a sporting event for their pigeons. They maintained secrecy because most captains
frowned upon such activities on board.

Q6. Which paragraph tells us-

(a) What the two men were doing aboard the ship?

Ans. Paragraph 49 tells us about what the two men were actually doing aboard the ship.

(b) Why the two men were hiding the box?

Ans. Paragraph 50 speaks of the need to hide the box because many Captains harboured a
prejudice against organizing such events aboard their ships.

(c) How the box worked?

Ans. Paragraph 51 gives us the exact working mechanism of the box which was specially
manufactured to keep the pigeons from prying eyes while also enabling the men to feed
the birds.

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