El Gedida secondry School for Girls

Prepared by Mr. Mohammed Sayed The face on the wall Prepared by Mr. Mohammed Sayed

Do you like reading? What kind of books do you like to read? Do you like reading stories? What kind of stories do you like, historical or science fiction? Which stories did you study in the first term?

There were some friends at Dabney’s house talking about unusual events that had no natural explanations. A strange man didn’t do anything but watching. Mr. Dabney asked him if he had any strange story to describe.

The man thought that truth was sometimes not only strange but also more interesting than stories. He began to tell them a story that had happened to him. Years ago he was renting a room in an old house in Ormand street.

The house was old and damp so there were a lot of patches on the wall. One of them was like a human face. The face controlled him specially when he was ill so he decided to search for a man like the face on the wall.

He went to places where people collect together in large numbers as railway stations, political meetings and football matches. The police began to suspect him as he was standing at busy corners watching the crowed only men.

At last he saw the man in a taxi along Piccadilly. He followed the man to Starcross railway station trying to speak to him. He couldn’t speak to the man as he was with two ladies and a little girl, then they moved with others to the train.

He decided to follow the man and speak to him before getting into the ship. AS the man got on board the ship before the storyteller, he decided to follow him to France. He stood in front of the rich man’s room. When he saw the man with the little girl he asked the man for his card for business.

As the man thought he was mad, he gave him his card and went quickly. When he read the card he fainted as he knew that the man’s name was Ormond wall. After leaving hospital and returning to London he decided to get information about the man.

He wrote to Pittsburg, wrote to American newspapers and met Americans in London. He only knew that Ormond was an American millionaire with English parents. One night he saw that the face became faint so he guessed that something wrong happened to the man. When he read the evening paper, he knew that man had a motor accident.

When he went home, he found that the face disappeared and later he knew that the man died at the very same time. At the end he told them that there were three extraordinary things about his story.

The three things were: The name of the man was like the name of the street where he was living. The disappearance of the face was at the same time of the man’s death. The last one was that he made the story up half an hour before telling it.

Test A) Put (T) for true sentences and (F ) for false: 1 – The stranger was living in a modern house. () 2 – All the patches changed but the face. ( ) 3 – He saw the man in a bus. ( ) 4 – The face disappeared when the man died. ( ) 5 - There were two extraordinary things about the story. ( )

B ) Answer the following questions. 1 – What were the friends talking about? 2 – What was the stranger’s opinion about truth? 3 – When did the police begin to suspect the strange man? 4 – Why couldn’t the stranger speak to the man at Starcross railway station? 5 – Was the stranger clever? 6 – What was the third extraordinary thing?

C ) Put the events in the correct order: He saw the man in a taxi. The face got firmer hold on him so he went to search for a man like it. When he read the card, he fainted. The story teller stood in front of the man’s room. He couldn’t speak to the man at the railway station so he decided to follow him and speak to him before sailing

D ) Do the puzzle d a k p h c t z w y o n I b x s u v e i m f g j l r 1 - ……was the house owner. 2 – the house was………. . 3 – He saw the man in…….street. 4 – The stranger was taken to…….after he had read the card. 5 – People thought he was …….

Resources: The story. The internet

With my best wishes Mohammed sayed