'The Midnight Visitor' is a gripping spy thriller by Robert Arthur, found in the Class 10 English Footprints Without Feet textbook. It is a brilliant story about how a clever mind is far more powerful than a weapon.
Author: Robert Arthur.
Protagonist: Ausable (a clever, unconventional secret agent).
Antagonist: Max (a rival spy with a gun).
Ausable's Weapon: His quick thinking and the fictional balcony story.
Ausable was a secret agent who did not fit the stereotypical image of a spy. He was fat, spoke French with an American accent, and seemed completely ordinary. However, he was extraordinarily clever and quick-witted.
When Max appeared in Ausable's room with a pistol demanding a secret report, Ausable brilliantly invented a fictional story about a balcony outside the window. He complained (falsely) about people climbing through this 'balcony' to enter his room. Max believed him.
When someone knocked on the door, Ausable said it was the police. The frightened Max stepped backward toward the 'balcony' he believed existed — and fell out of the window to his death, as there was no balcony at all.
Intelligence and quick thinking are more powerful than brute force or weapons. Ausable won without firing a single shot.
Ausable invented a fictional story about a balcony outside his window. When a knock came at the door, Max feared it was the police, stepped backward expecting to hide on the balcony, and fell to his death because no balcony existed.
Max wanted to steal a highly important secret government report that Ausable was expecting to receive that very night.
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