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Question
Explain how the narrator got out of the tight corner that he was in.
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Solution
When the author was perplexed beyond measure and was even ready to welcome a firing squad to bail him out of the current crisis, a divine chance presented itself to the narrator. The narrator had stupidly given an open bid to buy “big Daubigny” for 4050 guineas when he had only 63 pounds in his bank account. However hard he tried, he could not recall a name of an “uncle” or a friend who could extend him a loan to cover the price of the painting. To delay disgrace, he was standing at the end of the queue of the successful bidders. Like a providential intervention, a mediator from the starting bidder who was ready to take the same painting for 4000 guineas enquired the narrator in a husky cockney tone if he was the gentleman who had bought, “big Daubigny”.
The narrator admitted it. To the narrator’s great relief, the mediator said the first bidder wanted to know if he would take 50 guineas for his interest. The author should have embraced him and wept for joy for bailing him out of a potential disgrace. But he made the best use of the opportunity exhibiting his guile, by asking him if that was the most he could offer. The mediator said that there was no harm in asking for some more. The narrator said he would take a hundred guineas. When the man left to find out the possibility both the author and his friend laughed.
But when the author saw the cheque for hundred guineas, he became serious. He said with joy and shock, “of all the luck! well, I’m hanged”. Thus the narrator had a narrow escape from a tight comer. One could even say that the narrator escaped by the skin of his teeth.
“Call it a narrow escape, maybe it’s your lucky day. ”
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| a) The narrator had only 63 pounds with him and did not know how to manage the situation. | |
| b) The narrator thought of all his relations from whom he could borrow. | |
| c) Unfortunately he had made the highest bid. | |
| d) The narrator entered Christie’s as his friend persuaded him to visit the saleroom. | |
| e) Every time someone else made a higher bid and the narrator was not caught. | |
| f) The narrator on a sudden impulse added 50 more guineas, to the amount offered. | |
| g) His friend joined him then but left immediately unable to control his laughter. | |
| h) He even thought of borrowing from moneylenders and considered the possibility of confessing the truth to the staff at Christie’s. | |
| i) The picture was declared sold to the narrator. | |
| j) After some time a picture was put up and a bid for 4000 guineas was raised. | |
| k) A sudden stroke of luck befell the narrator when he heard that the gent who had made the bid of 4000 guineas would offer him the additional 50 guineas and buy the picture. | |
| l) The narrator kept bidding just for fun. | |
| m) The picture was given away to the other bidder and the narrator was saved from humiliation. | |
| n) His friend had left the place roaring with laughter at the narrator’s predicament. | |
| o) The narrator was quite happy at the offer but demanded 100 guineas instead of the 50. Now there was no need for him to make any payment. |
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