Question 33
EasyOriginal questionHarris asked me if I’d ever been in the at Hampton Court. He said he went in once to show somebody else the way. He had studied it up in a map, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish—hardly worth the twopence charged for . It was a country cousin that Harris took in. He said:
“We’ll just go in here, so that you can say you’ve been, but it’s very simple. It’s to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the right.”
They picked up various other people who wanted to get it over, as they went along, until they had all the persons in the maze. Harris said he should judge there must have been twenty people, following him, in all; and one woman with a baby, who had been there all the morning, insisted on taking his arm, for fear of losing him.
Harris kept on turning to the right, but it seemed a long way, and his cousin said he supposed it was a very big maze.
“Oh, one of the largest in Europe,” said Harris.
“Yes, it must be,” replied the cousin, “because we’ve walked a good two miles already.”
Harris began to think it rather strange himself, but he held on until, at last, they passed the half of a penny bun on the ground that Harris’s cousin swore he had noticed there seven minutes ago. Harris said: “Oh, impossible!” but the woman with the baby said, “Not at all,” as she herself had taken it from the child, and thrown it down there, just before she met Harris. She also added that she wished she never had met Harris, and expressed an opinion that he was an .
Why did the other people in the maze join Harris?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
They "wanted to get it over", and Harris seemed sure of the way, so they followed him.
Worth noting
They were strangers, not friends; one woman even took his arm "for fear of losing him".
- Concept
- Inferring motive from behaviour
- Typical timeTypical
- 35 s
- Your timeYours
- —
Ten questions from Literary passages, at your own pace.