Here are given answers to the ‘The Adventures of Toto’ textbook exercise. All answers are written in an easy language and as per the CBSE standards to score full marks. Student should write their own answers also.
Click here for more study materials on Class 9 English book ‘Moments’
The Adventures of Toto: Solutions
Q1. How does Toto come to grandfather’s private zoo?
Ans. Grandfather loved animals. One day he saw this attractive monkey with a Tonga driver. Toto, the little red monkey, was in the custody of a tonga-driver who kept him tied to a feeding-trough. Grandfather felt that no place was better than his private zoo for Toto. So he purchased Toto from the tonga-driver for five rupees and thus Toto came to Grandfather’s private zoo.
Q2. “Toto was a pretty monkey.” In what sense is Toto pretty?
Ans. Toto had bright eyes sparkling with mischief, pearly white teeth, quick and wicked fingers and a gracious tail which served as a third hand. The smile of Toto was cute and frightened elderly Anglo-Indian ladies. Altogether, these qualities made him pretty.
Q.3. Why does grandfather take Toto to Saharanpur and how? Why does the ticket collector insist on calling Toto a dog?
Ans. Toto was a mischievous monkey. He kept disturbing all other animals in grandfather’s private zoo. It seemed that only grandfather could manage him properly. So, he took Toto to Saharanpur in a bag. The ticket collector called Toto a dog as the monkey did not qualify the category of human beings.
Q.4. How does Toto take a bath? Where has he learnt to do this? How does Toto almost boil himself alive?
Ans. Toto takes a bath in a tub of warm water in the manner of human beings. He tests the temperature of the water with his hand. Then he puts his legs in the water one by one and rubs soap all over as well.
He learnt it all from the author. Toto has seen the narrator doing the same and learnt from him how to take a bath. When the water becomes cold, he would get out and run as quickly as he could to the kitchen-fire for drying himself.
One day he steps in the kettle left on the fire to boil for tea. He takes the lid off and after testing the temperature of the water, sits inside. When the water gets hot, he jumped up and down. Luckily, the grandmother arrived in time and pulled him alive out of the kettle in half-boiled condition.
Ans. Toto was mischievous and created troubles for its surrounding people and animals. The author was not rich enough to afford the frequent losses due to Toto.
Toto did not stay with the narrator’s family forever. When brought home, Toto was tied to a peg but he pulled it out and tore the wallpaper. Besides, he tore the narrator’s blazer into shreds. Then he was shifted to the servants’ quarters where he created the trouble for Nana, the donkey. Thereafter he stepped into the hot kettle and boiled himself nearly alive.
One day, at lunch-time, Toto started stuffing himself with rice from a large dish of pullao lying on the dining-table. When the narrator’s grandmother screamed, Toto threw a plate at her. One of his aunts rushed forward and Toto threw a glass of water in her face. When Grandfather arrived, Toto picked up the dish of pullao and jumped through a window. Holding the dish still in arms, he sat in the branches of the jackfruit tree. In order to avenge Grandmother for her morning ‘mistake’, he threw the dish down from the tree, breaking it into a hundred pieces.
The family was not well-to-do. It couldn’t afford the frequent loss of dishes, clothes, curtains and wallpaper. Finally, the narrator admitted that Toto was not the sort of pet to be kept for long.
