This passage is adapted from Saki, `The Schartz-Metterklume Method.` Originally published in 1911.
Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station and took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train should be pleased to proceed on its way. Then, in the roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more than ample load, and a carter of the sort that seems to bear a sullen hatred against the animal that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betook her to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the struggle. Certain of her acquaintances were wont to give her plentiful admonition as to the undesirability of interfering on behalf of a distressed animal, such interference being `none of her business.` Only once had she put the doctrine of non-interference into practice, when one of its most eloquent exponents had been besieged for nearly three hours in a small and extremely uncomfortable may-tree by an angry boar-pig, while Lady Carlotta, on the other side of the fence, had proceeded with the water-colour sketch she was engaged on, and refused to interfere between the boar and his prisoner. It is to be feared that she lost the friendship of the ultimately rescued lady. On this occasion she merely lost the train, which gave way to the first sign of impatience it had shown throughout the journey, and steamed off without her. She bore the desertion with philosophical indifference; her friends and relations were thoroughly well used to the fact of her luggage arriving without her. She wired a vague non-committal message to her destination to say that she was coming on `by another train.` Before she had time to think what her next move might be she was confronted by an imposingly attired lady, who seemed to be taking a prolonged mental inventory of her clothes and looks. `You must be Miss Hope, the governess I've come to meet,` said the apparition, in a tone that admitted of very little argument. `Very well, if I must I must,` said Lady Carlotta to herself with dangerous meekness. `I am Mrs. Quabarl,` continued the lady; `and where, pray, is your luggage?` `It's gone astray,` said the alleged governess, falling in with the excellent rule of life that the absent are always to blame; the luggage had, in point of fact, behaved with perfect correctitude. `I've just telegraphed about it,` she added, with a nearer approach to truth. `How provoking,` said Mrs. Quabarl; `these railway companies are so careless. However, my maid can lend you things for the night,` and she led the way to her car. During the drive to the Quabarl mansion Lady Carlotta was impressively introduced to the nature of the charge that had been thrust upon her; she learned that Claude and Wilfrid were delicate, sensitive young people, that Irene had the artistic temperament highly developed, and that Viola was something or other else of a mould equally commonplace among children of that class and type in the twentieth century. `I wish them not only to be TAUGHT,` said Mrs. Quabarl, `but INTERESTED in what they learn. In their history lessons, for instance, you must try to make them feel that they are being introduced to the life-stories of men and women who really lived, not merely committing a mass of names and dates to memory. French, of course, I shall expect you to talk at meal-times several days in the week.` `I shall talk French four days of the week and Russian in the remaining three.` `Russian? My dear Miss Hope, no one in the house speaks or understands Russian.` `That will not embarrass me in the least,` said Lady Carlotta coldly. Mrs. Quabarl, to use a colloquial expression, was knocked off her perch. She was one of those imperfectly self-assured individuals who are magnificent and autocratic as long as they are not seriously opposed. The least show of unexpected resistance goes a long way towards rendering them cowed and apologetic.
When the new governess failed to express wondering admiration of the large newly-purchased and expensive car, and lightly alluded to the superior advantages of one or two makes which had just been put on the market, the discomfiture of her patroness became almost abject. Her feelings were those which might have animated a general of ancient warfaring days, on beholding his heaviest battle-elephant ignominiously driven off the field by slingers and javelin throwers. In sentence 1 of paragraph 1, `turn` most nearly means:
- slight movement.
- change in rotation.
- short walk.
- course correction.
Answer(s): C
Explanation:
Justification
In the opening sentence, “took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length,” the verb turn describes a brief, informal stroll along the platform. The phrase “up and down” emphasizes moving back and forth over a short distance, which aligns with the meaning “short walk.”
Why option C is correct: “short walk” captures both the limited spatial extent (“up and down its … length”) and the leisurely purpose (“to kill time”), matching the contextual nuance.
Why the other choices are unsuitable:
A: slight movement – too vague; it could refer to a microscopic shift, whereas the passage implies a perceptible, purposeful locomotion. B. change in rotation – irrelevant; no rotational motion is described, and the context is a human walking, not an object spinning. D. course correction – suggests altering direction while traveling along a path, which does not fit a simple back-and-forth promenade on a stationary platform.
Reference:
Merriam-Webster definition of turn (sense 5: “a short walk”): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turn Cambridge Dictionary entry for turn (walk): https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/turn