question: CHAPTER XXV

DOMINGO APPEARS

The carriers had stopped in a deserted village one morning after a long and arduous march from the mission station, when Ormsgill, lying in the hot white sand, looked quietly at Nares, who sat with his back against one of the empty huts.

"If I knew what the dusky image was thinking I should feel considerably more at ease," he said. "Still, I don't, and there's very little use in guessing. After all, we are a long way from grasping the negro's point of view on most subjects yet. They very seldom look at things as we do."

Nares nodded. "Anyway, I almost fancy we could consider what he has told us as correct," he said. "It's something to go upon."

The man he referred to squatted close by them, naked to the waist, though a few yards of cotton cloth hung from his hips. An old Snider rifle lay at his side, and he was big and muscular with a heavy, expressionless face. As Ormsgill had suggested, it certainly afforded very little indication of what he was thinking, and left it a question whether he was capable of intelligent thought at all. They had come upon him in the deserted village on the edge of a great swamp an hour earlier, and he had skillfully evaded their questions as to what he was doing there.

It was an oppressively hot morning, and a heavy, dingy sky hung over the vast morass which they could see through the openings between the scattered huts. It stretched back bare and level, a vast desolation, towards the interior, with a little thin haze floating over it in silvery belts here and there, and streaking the forest that crept up to its edge. The carriers lay half-asleep in the warm sand, blotches of white and blue and ebony, and the man with the rifle appeared vacantly unconcerned. Time is of no value to the negro, and one could have fancied that he was prepared to wait there all day for the white men's next question.
1. What kind of firearm did the man have?
2. Was the man wearing a shirt?
3. True or False: The man with the rifle was smiling.
4. How is his face described?
5. What color is the sand?
6. True or False: The man with the rifle seemed worried abut something.
7. Did he seem impatient?
8. Who are the two named characters?
9. What is the name of the first mentioned?
10. And the second?
11. What is the title of this chapter?
12. What is the deserted settlement near?
13. What kind of housing is there?
14. What does the narrator say is worthless to the "negro?"
15. How long had it been since the carriers had found the rifleman?
16. Did the rifleman tell the carriers what he was doing in the settlement?
17. True or False: The carriers had walked far from their station.
18. What hung from the rifleman's waist?
19. Made of what?
20. Of what color?
21. True or False: The rifleman was thin.
****
answer: 1. An old Snider rifle.
2. No
3. False.
4. Heavy and expressionless.
5. White
6. False.
7. No.
8. Carriers.
9. Ormsgill.
10. Nares.
11. "DOMINGO APPEARS"
12. A swamp.
13. Huts.
14. Time.
15. An hour.
16. No.
17. True.
18. Cloth.
19. Cotton.
20. Unknown.
21. False.

input: Make use of the article to answer the questions. There seems to be a general assumption that brilliant people cannot stand routine ; that they need a varied , exciting life in order to do their best . It is also assumed that dull people are particularly suited for dull work . We are told that the reason the present-day young complain so loudly about the dullness of jobs is that they are better educated and brighter than the young of the past .

Actually , there is no evidence that people who achieve a lot desire , let alone live , colorful lives . The opposite is nearer the truth . Einstein worked out his theory of relativity while serving as a clerk in a Swiss patent office . Immanuel Kant's daily life was a dull routine . The housewives of Konigsberg set their clocks when they saw him pass , on his way to the university . He took the same walk each morning , rain or shine . The greatest distance Kant ever traveled was sixty miles from Konigsberg .

It may be true that work on the assembly line dulls the abilities and empties the mind , and the cure is only fewer hours of work at higher pay . But during fifty years as a workingman , I have found dull routine coexisting with an active mind . While doing dull , repetitive work by the water , I could talk with my partners and compose sentences in my mind , all at the same time . Chances are that had my work been too interesting I could not have done any thinking and composing at work or even on my own time after returning from work .

People who find dull jobs unbearable are often dull people who do not know what to do with themselves at leisure . Children and mature people will get used to dull routine , while the adolescent , who has lost the child's ability for concentration and is without the inner resources of the mature , needs excitement and novelty to get rid of boredom . 1. Who needs excitement and novelty?
2. What is the general assumption?
3. What else?
4. Do you think it is true?
5. What is true
6. Who is someone that proves this?
7. How?
8. How long did the author work?
9. What did he find out?
10. What could he do while working?
11. What else?
12. What does he say about people that find dull jobs bad?
13. Who can get use to it?
numbered_answers:
1. adolescent
2. brilliant people cannot stand routine
3. dull people are particularly suited for dull work
4. No
5. The opposite
6. Einstein
7. worked out his theory of relativity while serving as a clerk in a Swiss patent office
8. fifty years
9. dull routine coexists with an active mind
10. I could talk with my partners
11. compose sentences in my mind
12. dull people who do not know what to do with themselves at leisure
13. Children and mature people