A TRIUMPH OF SURGERY

Question Bank (Answers)

1.(a) The speaker (James Herriot ) tried to sound severe as he knew that the dog’s health
was not good and warned Ms.Pumphrey to cut down his diet as if that was not done , his
condition get worsen .

(b) The advice was being given for Tricki, the dog whose health condition was deteriorating
day by day.

(c) He can get healthy only when his owner, Ms.Pumphrey keeps him on a strict diet and
makes him do some physical exercises.

(d) The antonym of ‘hardened’ is

2. (c) Mr.Herriot advised Ms.Pumphrey to cut down the diet of Tricki and keep him on a very
strict diet and he also suggested to make Tricki do some sort of physical exercise regularly.
No Mrs Pumphrey did not heed to doctor’s advice and ended informing the doctor that
Tricki had stopped eating everything and also had not got up from his couch since the
morning. She made many excuses in front of the doctor when he asked her whether she had
followed the suggestions given up by him. Firstly she said that Tricki had grown weak so she
followed with the same diet she had been following in addition to it she also made Tricki eat
ice cream cakes and chocolates as they were it’s favourite.

(e) The narrator is tempted to keep Tricki as a permanent guest as while he was with the
narrator, it’s owner Mrs Pumphrey used to send two dozens of eggs and bottles of wine. The
narrator and his friends used to have two eggs each in the breakfast and used to drink the
wine in the afternoon during the lunch, this began to become quite a treat for them daily
which led the doctor to think about keeping Tricki as a permanent guest.

(f) The very first day the doctor kept bowls of food in front of all the dogs who then had to
run and have the food , the dogs who were unable to run fast would not get any meal, Tricki
quite lazily walked towards the bowls and licked the empty bowls. The very next day the
doctor kept an extra bowl of food for Tricki who then quite actively ran towards his food and
had it. After that day his condition recovered quite rapidly and at last he became active like
all the other dogs and also used to play with them.

3. Yes, The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness, this statement is true in the light of
the chapter ‘The triumph of surgery’. As Mrs Pumphrey already knowing that Tricki, her dog
if overfed could become seriously ill could not stop herself from making Tricki eat all the
things he liked and making it do none of the physical exercises prescribed by their doctor
ending up sending Tricki for an operation. When the doctor came to pick up Tricki in hi