Mudstone
Read the passage given below carefully.
1.Mudstone and Grinby’s warehouse was at the water side. It was down in Blackfriars. Modem improvements have altered the place; but it was the last house at the bottom of a narrow street, curving downhill to the river, with some stairs at the end, where people took a boat. It was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats. Its paneled rooms, discoloured with the dirt and smoke of a hundred years, I dare say; its decaying floors and staircase; the squeaking and scuffling of the old grey rats down in the cellars; and the dirt and rottenness of the place; are things, not of many years ago, in my mind, but of the present instant. They are all before me, just as they were in the evil hour when I went among them for the first time, with my trembling hand in Mr Quinion’s.
2. Mudstone and Grinby’s trade was among a good many kinds of people, but an important branch of it was the supply of wines and spirits to certain packet ships. I forget now where they chiefly went, but I think there were some among them that made voyages both to the East and West Indies. I know that a great many empty bottles were one of the consequences of this traffic and that certain men and boys were employed to examine them against the light, and reject those that were flawed, and to rinse and wash them. When the empty bottles ran short, there were labels to be pasted on full ones, or corks to be fitted to them, or seals to be put upon the corks, or finished bottles to be packed in casks. All this work was my work, and of the boys employed upon it, I was one.
3. There were three or four of us, counting me. My working place was established in a corner of the warehouse, where Mr Quinion could see me, when he chose to stand up on the bottom rail of his stool in the counting-house, and look at me through a window above the desk. Hither, on the first morning of my so auspiciously beginning life on my own account, the oldest of the regular boys was summoned to show me my business. His name was Mick Walker, and he wore a ragged apron and a paper cap. He informed me that his father was a bargeman, and walked, in a black velvet head-dress, in the Lord Mayor’s Show. He also informed me that our principal associate would be another boy whom he introduced by the—to me–extraordinary name of Mealy Potatoes. I discovered, however, that this youth had not been christened by that name, but that it had been bestowed upon him in the warehouse, on account of his complexion, which was pale or mealy. Mealy’s father was a waterman, who had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was engaged as such at one of the large theatres; where some young relation of Mealy’s—I think his little sister—did Imp in the Pantomimes.
4. No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this companionship; compared these henceforth every day associates with those of my happier childhood – not to say with Steerforth, ‘Daddies, and the rest of those boys; and felt my hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my bosom. The deep remembrance of the sense I had, of being utterly without hope now; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that day by day what I had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, would pass away from me, little by little, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written.
(I)On the basis of your understanding of the passage answer the following questions with the help of the given options:
(a) The warehouse of Murdstone and Grimsby was located
(i) at the waterside down in Blackfriars
(ii) in an old building near the prison
(iii) on decaying floors and squeaky stairs
(iv) downhill to the river
(b) The writer’s workplace was established
(i) in the front office
(ii) in the back office
(iii) in a corner of the warehouse
(iv) in the middle of the warehouse
(c) Mr Quinion could look at David
(i) from above his desk
(ii) through the corner of his eyes
(iii) by standing on a stool
(iv) through a window above his desk
(d) The boy appointed to show David his business was
(i) Granby
(ii) Murdstone
(ii) Mealy
(ii) Mick Walker
(II) Answer the following questions briefly.
(a) Write two features of the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby.
(b) What work did David have to do at the warehouse?
(c) Why was Mick Walker chosen to show David his business?
(d) What were David’s reactions to his new associates?
(e) Who was their principal associate and how was he introduced?
(f) Where was Mealy’s father engaged?
(III) Find words from the passage which mean the same as:
(a) having a lot of knowledge (para 4)
(b) a person who rows a barge (para 3)
Ans. (I) (a) (i) at the waterside down in Blackfriars
(b) (iii) in a corner of the warehouse
(b) (iv) through a window above his desk
(d) (iv) Mick Walker
(II) (a) The warehouse of Murdstone and Ginny was (i) the last house at the bottom of the street and (ii) curved downhill to the river.
(b) Besides rinsing and washing bottles, David examined bottles against the light and rejected: those that were flawed.
(c) Mick Walker was chosen to show David his business because he was the oldest of the regular boys at the warehouse.
(d) David went through utter agony and recalled the friends of his happier childhood. He felt he would soon forget what he had learnt, thought and delighted earlier.
(e) Their principal associate was a boy with a pale complexion, who was introduced to David as ‘Mealy Potatoes’.
(f) Mealy’s father was engaged as a fireman at a theatre where Mealy’s sister enacted the pan of an imp in the pantomimes.
(III) (a) learned
(b) bargeman
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