The bulk of Our Southern Highlanders is based on observations Kephart made while at Hazel Creek (1904–1907), although several chapters added in 1922 were based on events that occurred later when Kephart lived in Bryson City. Chapters 9 ("The Snake-Stick Man") and 10 ("A Raid into the Sugarlands") were based on events that occurred in 1919. Chapter 11 ("The Killing of Hol Rose") was based on events that occurred in late 1920.
Chapter I, "Something Hidden; Go and Find It," discusses the remoteness and ruggedness of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the lack of realistic literature regarding its inhabitants, and gives a brief history of the region.
Chapter II, "The Back of Beyond," gives a description of Medlin and discusses how the mountaineers have adapted to their environment, the difficulties in farming the rugged terrain, and grazing in the highland meadows.
Chapter III, "The Great Smoky Mountains," discusses the topography, geology, wildlife and plant life of the Great Smokies range. Kephart also relates a story by a "Mr. and Mrs. Ferris" who ventured across the nearly-impassable crest of the central and eastern Smokies to Mount Guyot in search of plant specimens. He also discusses the harshness of the highland meadows, and recounts a story of 17 cattle freezing to death at Silers Meadow.
Chapter IV, "A Bear Hunt in the Smokies," recounts a bear hunt undertaken by Kephart and several Hazel Creek natives. The party includes Granville Calhoun, a Bone Valley resident named Bill Cope ("the hunchback"), John Baker "Little John" Cable, Jr. (1855–1939), Matt Hyde, and Andrew Jackson "Doc" Jones (1851–1935). The chapter begins at Hall cabin amidst a windstorm and ends with the successful killing of a bear. This chapter contains one of the earliest references to the Appalachian folk song Cumberland Gap.
Chapter V, "Moonshine Land," discusses Kephart's initial curiosity about moonshining, and recounts one mountaineer's justification for the practice.
Chapter VI, "Ways That Are Dark," continues Kephart's discussion of moonshining, particularly how it is made in Southern Appalachia, the typical size and settings of stills, etc.
Chapter VII, "A Leaf from the Past," traces the roots of moonshining to the British Isles, and explains how the practice made its way to Southern Appalachia.
Chapter VIII, "Blockaders and the Revenue," discusses the ongoing conflict between moonshiners and federal revenue agents.
Chapter IX, "The Snake-Stick Man," tells the story of a federal revenue agent whom Kephart calls "Mr. Quick" (an alias). Quick, who has a hobby of carving sticks into the form of snakes, has a polymathic expertise that Kephart finds most impressive. He is in the area to investigate illegal liquor sales at the nearby Cherokee Reservation.
Chapter X, "A Raid into the Sugarlands," recounts a manhunt led by "Mr. Quick" into the Sugarlands, a remote valley south of Gatlinburg on the Tennessee side of the Smokies. The chapter includes an anachronistic story about a mountaineer named "Jasper Fenn" (based on a real-life Sugarlander named Davis Bracken, who lived near what is now the Chimneys Campground) who claimed to have read a copy of Our Southern Highlanders given to him by the Pi Beta Phi settlement school in Gatlinburg.
Chapter XI, "The Killing of Hol Rose," recounts the killing of revenuer James Holland "Hol" Rose by J.E. "Babe" Burnett and Burnett's subsequent trial.
Chapter XII, "The Outlander and the Native," discusses the mountaineers' attitudes toward outsiders.
Chapter XIII, "The People of the Hills," describes the mountaineers' typical physical traits, work ethic, their ability to endure harsh conditions, and their general preference for mountain life over urban life.
Chapter XIV, "The Land of Do Without," discusses the mountaineers' homelife, their manner of dress, the prevalence of poverty and the mountaineers' scorn of charity.
Chapter XV, "Home Folks and Neighbor People," discusses gender and family roles, religion and funerary rights, music and dancing, and Christmas and New Years Day customs among the mountain people.
Chapter XVI, "The Mountain Dialect," discusses mountain speech. Kephart's observations in this chapter mark one of the first serious analyses of the Southern Appalachian dialect, and one of the first to label it a distinct dialect rather than merely the speech habits of the uneducated. While Kephart overemphasizes archaic "Elizabethan" traits in the dialect, linguists acknowledge his keen observations and painstaking scholarship in this analysis.
Chapter XVII, "The Law of the Wilderness," discusses the mountaineers' penchant for self-reliance and individualism, the importance of family bonds, and attitudes toward government.
Chapter XVIII, "The Blood-Feud," discusses Appalachian clan feuding, its typical causes, and how it compares to other cultural clan feuds, such as Corsican vendettas.
Chapter XIV, "Who Are the Mountaineers?", traces the Scotch-Irish roots and migration patterns of the Southern Appalachian mountaineers, and emphasizes that the Appalachian culture is a distinct culture spread across the highlands of several states.
Chapter XX, "When the Sleeper Awakes," discusses how encroaching commercialism and modernity, brought to the region by logging firms and other corporations, threatened to erode the mountain culture.

Question: The killing of Hoe Rose was base on the event that occured in what year?


"Tom Bailey" is born in the fictitious town of Rivermouth, New Hampshire, but moves to New Orleans with his family when he is 18 months old. In his boyhood, his father wants his to be educated in the North and sent him back to Rivermouth to live with his grandfather, Captain Nutter. Nutter lives with his sister and an Irish servant. There, Tom becomes a member of a boys' club called the Centipedes. Together, the boys become involved in a series of adventures. In one prank, the boys steal an old carriage and push it into a bonfire for the [Fourth of July. During the winter, several boys build a snow fort on Slatter's Hill, inciting rival boys into a battle of snowballs. Later, Tom and three other boys combine their money to buy a boat named Dolphin and sneak away to an island. Tom also befriends a man nicknamed Sailor Ben, whom Tom originally meets on the ship that took him away from New Orleans. Revealed as the long-lost husband of Captain Nutter's Irish servant, Ben settles in Rivermouth in a boat-like cabin. Sailor Ben helps the boys fire off a series of old cannon at the pier, much to the confusion of the local townspeople. When his father's banking job fails, Tom is invited by an uncle to work in a counting-house in New York.

Question: Besides Tom, who lived with Captain Nutter?

His sister and Irish servent.
Nutter's sister and an Irish servent


The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury. Although they have been informally betrothed for some time, her father has made financial sacrifices to give his adored only child a superior education and no longer considers Giles good enough for her. When the new doctor â a well-born and handsome young man named Edgar Fitzpiers â takes an interest in Grace, her father does all he can to make Grace forget Giles, and to encourage what he sees as a brilliant match. Grace has misgivings prior to the marriage as she sees a village woman (Suke Damson) coming out of his cottage very early in the morning and suspects he has been sleeping with her. She tells her father that she does not want to go on with the marriage and he becomes very angry. Later Fitzpiers tells her Suke has been to visit him because she was in agony from toothache and he extracted a molar. Grace clutches at this explanation - in fact Fitzpiers has started an affair with Suke some weeks previously. After the honeymoon, the couple take up residence in an unused wing of Melbury's house. Soon, however, Fitzpiers begins an affair with a rich widow named Mrs. Charmond, which Grace and her father discover. Grace finds out by chance that Suke Damson has a full set of teeth and realises that Fitzpiers lied to her. The couple become progressively more estranged and Fitzpiers is assaulted by his father-in-law after he accidentally reveals his true character to him. Both Suke Damson and Mrs Charmond turn up at Grace's house demanding to know whether Fitzpiers is all right - Grace addresses them both sarcastically as "Wives -all". Fitzpiers later deserts Grace and goes to the Continent with Mrs Charmond. Grace realises that she has only ever really loved Giles but as there is no possibity of divorce feels that her love seems hopeless.
Melbury is told by a former legal clerk down on his luck that the law was changed in the previous year (making the setting of the action 1858) and divorce is now possible. He encourages Giles to resume his courtship of Grace. It later becomes apparent, however, that Fitzpiers' adultery is not sufficient for Grace to be entitled to a divorce. When Fitzpiers quarrels with Mrs. Charmond and returns to Little Hintock to try to reconcile with his wife, she flees the house and turns to Giles for help. He is still convalescing from a dangerous illness, but nobly allows her to sleep in his hut during stormy weather, whilst he insists on sleeping outside. As a result, he dies. Grace later allows herself to be won back to the (at least temporarily) repentant Fitzpiers, thus sealing her fate as the wife of an unworthy man. This is after Suke's husband Timothy Tangs has set a man trap to try to crush Fitzpiers' leg but it only tears Grace's skirt.
No one is left to mourn Giles except a courageous peasant girl named Marty South,who has always loved him. Marty is a plain girl whose only attribute is her beautiful hair. She is persuaded to sell this at the start of the story to a barber who is procuring it for Mrs Charmond, after Marty realises that Giles loves Grace and not her. She precipitates the final quarrell between Fitzpiers and Mrs Charmond by writing to Fitzpiers and telling him of the origin of most of Mrs Charmond's hair.

Question: Fitzpiers is having affairs with who?

Suke and Mrs. Charmond
both Suke and Mrs. Charmond


This plot summary is based on a text published ca. 1760 by John Cotton and Joshua Eddowes, which in its turn was based on a chapbook ca. 1711, and reprinted in 'The Classic Fairy Tales' by Iona and Peter Opie in 1974.
The tale is set during the reign of King Arthur and tells of a young Cornish farmer's son named Jack who is not only strong but so clever he easily confounds the learned with his penetrating wit. Jack encounters a cattle-eating giant called Cormoran (Cornish: 'The Giant of the Sea' SWF:Kowr-Mor-An) and lures him to his death in a pit trap. Jack is dubbed 'Jack the Giant-Killer' for this feat and receives not only the giant's wealth, but a sword and belt to commemorate the event. Another giant named Blunderbore vows vengeance for Cormoran's death and carries Jack off to an enchanted castle. Jack manages to slay Blunderbore and his brother Rebecks by hanging and stabbing them. He frees three ladies held captive in the giant's castle.
On a trip into Wales, Jack tricks a two-headed Welsh giant into slashing his own belly open. King Arthur's son now enters the story and Jack becomes his servant. They spend the night with a three-headed giant and rob him in the morning. In gratitude for having spared his castle, the three-headed giant gives Jack a magic sword, a cap of knowledge, a cloak of invisibility, and shoes of swiftness. On the road, Jack and the Prince meet an enchanted Lady serving Lucifer. Jack breaks the spell with his magic accessories, beheads Lucifer, and the Lady marries the Prince. Jack is rewarded with membership in the Round Table.
Jack ventures forth alone with his magic shoes, sword, cloak, and cap to rid the realm of troublesome giants. He encounters a giant terrorizing a knight and his lady. He cuts off the giant's legs then puts him to death. He discovers the giant's companion in a cave. Invisible in his cloak, Jack cuts off the giant's nose then slays him by plunging his sword into the monster's back. He frees the giant's captives and returns to the house of the knight and lady he earlier had rescued. A banquet is prepared, but it is interrupted by the two-headed giant Thunderdel chanting "Fee, fau, fum". Jack defeats and beheads the giant with a trick involving the house's moat and drawbridge.
Growing weary of the festivities, Jack sallies forth for more adventures and meets an elderly man who directs him to an enchanted castle belonging to the giant Galigantus (Galligantua, in the Joseph Jacobs version). The giant holds captive many knights and ladies and a Duke's daughter who has been transformed into a white doe through the power of a sorcerer. Jack beheads the giant, the sorcerer flees, the Duke's daughter is restored to her true shape, and the captives are freed.
At the court of King Arthur, Jack marries the Duke's daughter and the two are given an estate where they live happily ever after.

Question: What are the four objects the three-headed giant gives Jack as a show of gratitude?

Magic sword, Cap of Knowledge, Cloak of Invisibility, Shoes of Swiftness

cap of knowledge, shoes of swiftness, magic sword, and invisibility cloak.


The story is set in 13th century England and concerns the fictional outlaw Norman of Torn, who purportedly harried the country during the power struggle between King Henry III and Simon de Montfort. Norman is the supposed son of the Frenchman de Vac, once the king's fencing master, who has a grudge against his former employer and raises the boy to be a simple, brutal killing machine with a hatred of all things English. His intentions are partially subverted by a priest who befriends Norman and teaches him his letters and chivalry towards women.
Otherwise, all goes according to plan. By 17, Norman is the best swordsman in all of England; by the age of 18, he has a large bounty on his head, and by the age of 19, he leads the largest band of thieves in all of England. None can catch or best him. In his hatred for the king he even becomes involved in the civil war, which turns the tide in favor of de Montfort. In another guise, that of Roger de Conde, he becomes involved with de Montfort's daughter Bertrade, defending her against her and her father's enemies. She notes in him a curious resemblance to the king's son and heir Prince Edward.
Finally brought to bay in a confrontation with both King Henry and de Montfort, Norman is brought down by the treachery of de Vac, who appears to kill him, though at the cost of his own life. As de Vac dies, he reveals that Norman is in fact Richard, long-lost son of King Henry and Queen Eleanor and brother to Prince Edward. The fencing master had kidnapped the prince as a child to serve as the vehicle of his vengeance against the king. Luckily, Norman/Richard turns out not to be truly dead, surviving to be reconciled to his true father and attain the hand of Bertrade.

Question: Who is supposed to be Norman's father?


Instead of Sherlock Holmes being the main character, the story follows Jack Colder, who claims his only notable childhood experience was when he accidentally prevented a burglary during an attempt to escape a boarding school. This event caught Jim Horscroft and the two become friends. Once Jim goes off to medical school, Jack reunites with his cousin Edie, who found herself in a lot of money due to her father’s death. Jack takes a liking to Edie, but is deterred when Edie shows less enthusiasm and shows great attraction to men in battle. Upon hearing this, Jack insists that he will become a soldier despite both of his parents’ disapproval. Jack ultimately asks Edie to marry him. It is at this time that Jim returns to West Inch, and he quickly takes a liking to Edie, who seems much more attracted to Jim. When Jack reveals to Jim that the two are engaged he is quickly off put and sinks into depression combined with drunkenness. After a couple days, Jim recovers and is caught embracing Edie by Jack. The two argue and ultimately decide to have Edie choose. Edie chooses Jim and the two become engaged. The arrival of Lapp, a mystery French man who arrives on a small ship interrupts the peace as he claimed to have been in a ship wreck and was traveling for three days lost at sea. Jack offers him food and a place to stay while Jim is a little more hesitant. The boys quickly realize Lapp is very rich and has many battle scores that are only outmatched by his endless war stories that charm everyone, including Edie. Lapp claims he is to stay there until he is needed. Lapp becomes a regular in the community, Jack suspects Lapp is a spy after he catches him sneaking around on multiple occasions. When Jim goes off to finish school and get his diploma, Edie reveals to Jack that she had married Lapp, and the next day Lapp leaves on a ship and reveals in a note that he actually is Bonaventure De Lissac who is Napolon’s aid. This angers Jim great as he learns Napoleon has escaped and is on the move. Jim offers his service to Major Elliot, to which Jack joins quickly. Major Elliot trains the boys as they prepare for the Battle of Waterloo. The French are described as having significant armor and were trained soldiers as opposed to the regiment Jack and Jim were a part of. The rest of the novel describes in vivid detail a soldier’s account of the Battle of Waterloo, with Jim and Jack walk from a half-mile away as the battle ensues before joining the battle at the very end. The ending of the book describes the French being defeated by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard von Blucher.

Question: What major historical event do the boys participate in?

The Battle of Waterloo
the Battle of Waterloo


Gregory Lunn and Mrs Juno are in love, having met during a sea voyage. On a sofa in a hotel where both are staying, they discuss their feelings. They are both already married, so they decide they must part, but are unable to do so. They then recognise the voices of their respective spouses, apparently staying together at the same hotel. They leave in confusion. Mrs Lunn and Mr. Sibthorpe Juno enter and sit together on the same sofa that the other pair have just left. Sibthorpe says he is in love with Mrs Lunn, but she says she is only mildly attracted to him. Sibthorpe wants her to either accept or reject him outright. Her willingness to merely have an affair disturbs him. Gregory and Mrs. Juno re-enter and both couples reveal their conflicting feelings. They all find they have differet views about the situation. Gregory feels that there is a morally unacceptable contradiction between his desires and his honour. Sibthorpe, in contrast, says that such mixed feelings are fine, as long as one acts according to moral principles. Mrs Lunn believes that moral rules are silly. She thinks that as long as everyone gets the best they can out of the situation, that's all that matters. She's quite happy for Mrs Juno to have her husband for a while, and to return to compliment by enjoying her affair with Sibthorpe. Sibthorpe says that this is justifying polygamy. Mrs Lunn says she intends to continue the affair with Sibthorpe, because she enjoys it. Mrs Juno likewise refuses to stop seeing Gregory, because she enjoys being adored by him. So they agree to leave things as they are.

Question: Who did Gregory fall in love with during a sea voyage?


The story centres on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren and her daughter, Vivie. Mrs. Warren, a former prostitute and current brothel owner, is described as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman." Vivie, an intelligent and pragmatic young woman who has just graduated from university, has come home to get acquainted with her mother for the first time in her life. The play focuses on how their relationship changes when Vivie learns what her mother does for a living. It explains why Mrs. Warren became a prostitute, condemns the hypocrisies relating to prostitution, and criticises the limited employment opportunities available for women in Victorian Britain.Vivie Warren, a thoroughly modern young woman, has just graduated from the University of Cambridge with honours in Mathematics (equal Third Wrangler), and is available for suitors. Her mother, Mrs. Warren (her name changed to hide her identity and give the impression that she is married), arranges for her to meet her friend Mr. Praed, a middle-aged, handsome architect, at the home where Vivie is staying. Mrs. Warren arrives with her business partner, Sir George Crofts, who is attracted to Vivie despite their 25-year age difference. Vivie is romantically involved with the youthful Frank Gardner, who sees her as his meal ticket. His father, the (married) Reverend Samuel Gardner, has a history with Vivie's mother. As we discover later, he may be Vivie's out-of-wedlock father, which would make Vivie and Frank half-siblings. Mrs. Warren successfully justifies to her daughter how she chose her particular profession in order to support her daughter and give her the opportunities she never had. She saved enough money to buy into the business with her sister, and she now owns (with Sir George) a chain of brothels across Europe. Vivie is, at first, horrified by the revelation, but then lauds her mother as a champion. However, the reconciliation ends when Vivie finds out that her mother continues to run the business even though she no longer needs to. Vivie takes an office job in the city and dumps Frank, vowing she will never marry. She disowns her mother, and Mrs. Warren is left heartbroken, having looked forward to growing old with her daughter.

Question: Which university did Vivie graduate from?

University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge


In a small Kansas town, Betty (Renée Zellweger), a kind and considerate diner waitress, is a fan of the soap opera A Reason to Love. She has no idea that her husband, Del (Aaron Eckhart), a car salesman, is having an affair with his secretary and that he intends to leave Betty to pursue a relationship with her. She also doesn't know that her husband supplements his income by selling drugs out of the car dealership. When Betty calls to leave a message about borrowing a Buick LeSabre for her birthday, her husband tells her to take a different car, as the LeSabre (unknown to Betty) has stolen drugs hidden in the trunk.
Two hitmen, Charlie and Wesley (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock), show up at the house with Betty's husband. The hitmen torture Betty's husband into revealing that he has hidden the drugs in the trunk of a car, but Wesley scalps him anyway. Betty witnesses the murder and experiences a fugue state, escaping the reality of murder into the comforting fantasy of the soap opera. In her mind, she assumes the identity of one of the characters in the daytime drama, a nurse.
That evening, Sheriff Eldon Ballard (Pruitt Taylor Vince), local reporter Roy Ostery (Crispin Glover), and several policemen examine the crime scene while Betty calmly packs a suitcase. She seems oblivious to the murder, even with the investigation going on right in her house. At the police station, a psychiatrist examines her. Betty spends the night at her friend's house, sleeping in a child's bedroom with the innocence of a little girl. In the middle of the night, she gets into her car and drives off. Betty's next stop is a bar in Arizona, where the lady bartender talks about her inspiring vacation in Rome, and Betty tells her that she was once engaged to a famous surgeon (describing the lead character from A Reason to Love – not the actor who portrays him).
Meanwhile, the two hitmen are trying to find her, as they have finally realized that she must have the car with the drugs. As they search, Charlie begins falling in love with his image of Betty, to Wesley's consternation. In Los Angeles, Betty tries to get a job as a nurse while looking for her long-lost "ex-fiancé". She is turned down due to having "forgotten" her résumé and references but manages to get a job in the pharmacy due to her help in saving the life of the victim of a drive-by shooting.
Despite an injunction against touching any patients, Betty becomes popular with them and their families. She ends up living with Rosa (Tia Texada), a Hispanic legal secretary who has had a series of painful love affairs and offers to help Betty find her surgeon boyfriend. Rosa learns from a colleague that "David" is just a soap opera character, and she goes to the pharmacy window to confront her. Betty thinks her friend is jealous and is impervious to the revelation.
The lawyer has an idea and supplies tickets to a charity function where George McCord (Greg Kinnear), the actor portraying David, will be appearing. Betty meets George at the function. George is inclined to dismiss her as an overimaginative fan, but something about her compels him to walk back and talk to her some more. He begins to think that Betty is an actress determined to get a part in the soap opera, so he decides to play along. After three hours of her "staying in character", he takes her home.
George begins falling in love with her, and he and his producer decide to bring her onto the show as a new character: Nurse Betty. When Betty arrives on set, she falls out of her fantasy world back into real life, as seeing the inner workings of a television show snaps her back into reality. After two failed takes, she realizes that she is on a set and that the people she thought were real are just characters portrayed by actors. George confronts her for being a "crazy person", and Betty walks out.
Now recovered, Betty begins to tell Rosa what happened when the two hitmen come into the house to decide what to do with them after they find the car with the drugs outside Rosa's house. The killers are interrupted by the reporter and Sheriff Ballard from Betty's hometown who have also tracked her down. A standoff ensues in which Ballard pulls out a gun from an ankle holster and shoots and kills Wesley, who is distracted by watching a taped airing of A Reason to Love. At this point, Wesley is revealed to be Charlie's son. Charlie, rather than be arrested, decides not to kill Betty and commits suicide in the bathroom.
George offers Betty a job on the show. She appears in 63 episodes and takes a vacation in Rome. Betty later plans to pursue nursing as a career.

Question: Who gets Betty a job on the tv show?


The story revolves around a struggle to determine which of Satan's (Harvey Keitel) three sons will succeed their father as ruler of Hell. Adrian (Rhys Ifans) is the most intelligent, Cassius (Tom Lister Jr.) is the toughest, and Nicky (Adam Sandler) is their father's favorite, even though Nicky has had a speech impediment and a disfigured jaw since Cassius hit him in the face with a shovel. Furthermore, Adrian and Cassius enjoy tormenting Nicky by claiming that his mother was a goat and assault him by controlling his body with their minds.
Having been the "prince of darkness" for ten thousand years, Satan assembles his sons to decide which of them will succeed him, but instead he keeps the throne for himself because his sons are not yet ready to be his successor and tells them that they need to learn to keep the balance between good and evil. Angered by this decision, Adrian and Cassius go to Earth to create a new Hell by possessing religious and political leaders in New York City. As they leave, they freeze the entrance to Hell, preventing more souls from entering and causing Satan's body to begin decomposing via his body literally falling apart. To stop Adrian and Cassius, Satan sends Nicky to Earth with a silver flask that traps whoever drinks from it inside.
At first, Nicky has trouble staying alive on Earth. He is killed several times, landing in Hell and returning to New York each time. While learning how to eat and sleep, he meets a talking bulldog named Mr. Beefy (voice of Robert Smigel) (a friend of Nicky's father), rents an apartment with an actor named Todd (Allen Covert), and falls in love with a design student named Valerie (Patricia Arquette).
Nicky's first encounter with his brothers occurs when Adrian sees him with Valerie, takes mental control of his body and makes him scare her away. Then Nicky sees Cassius on television, possessing the referee (Dana Carvey) of a Harlem Globetrotters game. When he goes to the court and tricks Cassius into the flask, metalheads John (Jonathan Loughran) and Peter (Peter Dante) are so thrilled with his performance that they become his devoted fans. That evening, Nicky tries to apologize to Valerie. The meeting goes badly at first, but she accepts him after he explains who he is and why he is on Earth.
The next day, Adrian possesses the chief of the NYPD (Michael McKean) and accuses Nicky of mass murder using a rather badly edited scene from Scarface. Not knowing what to do, Nicky has Todd kill him so he can go back to Hell and ask his father for advice, but his father has trouble hearing because his ears have fallen off and his assistants are in a panic because the midnight deadline to capture Adrian and Cassius is only hours away. Back on Earth again, Nicky and his friends devise a plan to capture Adrian in a subway station; John and Peter inform the chief of the NYPD of Nicky's whereabouts which leads to Todd and Mr. Beefy being arrested. While waiting for Nicky, Adrian discovers their trick when he realizes that John is keeping cool whereas Peter isn't which leads him to realize that John is being possessed by Nicky. In the ensuing fight, Adrian grabs Valerie and dives onto the track as a train approaches, but Nicky throws her out of the way, leaving himself and Adrian to be killed by the train.
Arriving in Hell just minutes before midnight, Adrian dethrones his weakened father and takes over, rising into Central Park and starting a riotous party while all of the demons except Satan's assistant Jimmy (Blake Clark) join Adrian on Earth. Meanwhile, Nicky wakes up in Heaven as a reward for sacrificing himself and meets his mother Holly (Reese Witherspoon), an angel who tells him he can defeat Adrian with the "inner light" that he inherited from her. After she gives him a mysterious orb, he goes to Central Park. The demons discover Nicky and try to attack him, but Nicky creates gifts for them which makes them respect Nicky enough to join him and stop Adrian, but they all run away when Adrian kills one of them. Nicky and Adrian then fight, which results in both of them sucked into the flask where they have a three-way battle with Cassius. Adrian appears to win a pitched battle by locking Nicky in the flask and turning himself into a bat, but Nicky (with Valerie's help) escapes from the flask. When he shatters the orb, Ozzy Osbourne appears, bites Adrian's head off and spits it into the flask (that scene was inspired by an actual incident in which Ozzy bit the head off of a real bat while on stage).
With his brothers captured, Nicky is ready to save his father. After he sins to make sure he goes to Hell by setting bees on Henry Winkler, he and Valerie express their love for each other and she kills him with a boulder given to her by Ozzy. With the flow of souls restored in Hell, Satan regains his body and recommends that Nicky go back to live on Earth. As for punishment, Adrian and Cassius (still inside the flask) are shoved up Adolf Hitler's rectum. The film ends a year later, when Nicky and Valerie live in New York with their infant son, Zachariah. In in afterword in which what happens to the characters, it is mentioned that John and Peter have died in a plane crash and are now happily living in Hell in Nicky's old bedroom.

Question: Who ends up going to heaven?


When satellite-tracking stations around the world begin receiving radio signals from deep space, Joe Burke, owner of a small engineering company, is about to propose marriage to Sandy Lund, a woman he has known since high school. The signals consist of a repeated series of flute-like notes, which Joe recognizes. Joe plays for Sandy a tape recording he made a year earlier and it sounds just like the signal from space. Joe explains that he got the notes from a lucid dream that has come to him off and on since he was eleven. In the dream he is on a world with two moons and trees with ribbon-like leaves and he is holding a strange weapon, a kind of recoilless pistol. In his shop he makes a modified version of the weapon and when he tests it, it breaks loose from the workbench and slams into a wall hard enough to shatter the bricks.
Meanwhile astronomers trace the signal to an asteroid, M-387, and send a radio signal to it. In response the asteroid changes its signal. With the help of Holmes, a yacht builder, Keller, an electronics expert, and several workmen, Joe builds a small spaceship propelled by a reactionless drive based on his modification of the recoilless pistol. Just in time the ship is finished and, with Holmes, Keller, Sandy, and Sandyâs sister Pam aboard, Joe lifts off just as the police arrive to end the project. Pursued by Nike missiles, Joe takes the ship into space and heads for Asteroid M-387.
After eleven days of travel they arrive at the asteroid and see only a radio mast and the entrance to a tunnel. When they fly their ship into the tunnel a door closes behind them, lights come on, and the tunnel fills with air and artificial gravity. Finding the air breathable, the five impromptu astronauts explore the asteroid. They discover that it is a vast, empty fortress with unknown weapons still in their racks and a control room where the fluting signal originates.
In one room Joe finds thousands of small black cubes. When he dozes off next to one he has a lucid dream of taking part in a weapons drill. He understands that the dream that has obsessed him since childhood must have come from a fragment of a similar cube that had been found in a Cro-Magnon cave with artifacts dated to 20,000 B.C. Sandy suggests looking for cube readers, reasoning that learning from a cube by sleeping near it is inefficient. They find a pair of reading helmets and quickly begin learning all about the fortress, its weapons, and an implacable Enemy with which the garrisonâs civilization may have been at war for 100,000 years or more. They also learn that the Enemy has sent a new attack, one that will rip apart the solar system in a matter of days.
Using a procedure that Keller develops, Joe, Holmes, and Keller modify three hundred of the torpedoes they find in the fortress and launch them. The ten-foot spheres accelerate toward the enemy squadron at 160-gees, approaching the speed of light in little over two days. The torpedoes obliterate the Enemyâs squadron and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Then Joe notes that in a few centuries Humanity will have to go out into interstellar space to look for the Enemy.

Question: Why does Joe recognize the notes being sent from space?

They sounds like a recording he made for Sandy.

Because, he has heard them in a lucid dream, since he was eleven.


After writing an unfortunate article under a pseudonym (Machiavelli, Jr.) and having it published in a prestigious journal read by diplomats, Stephen Silk is to be banished from the Solar League's capitol on Luna for a time. He is assigned to be the Solar League's new ambassador to the people of Capella IV, New Texas. The position is open because the previous ambassador, Silas Cumshaw, was assassinated.
On the starship taking him to his new posting Silk meets his secretary/bodyguard, a native New Texan named Hoddy Ringo. The briefing books that were given to him tell him little about the New Texans and their culture and the contents of the trunk that was put aboard the ship for him appall him: contrary to the practices of the Consular Service, he will be obliged to dress in native costume and to carry a pair of automatic pistols in ejection holsters. Evidence he finds while surreptitiously searching Hoddy's quarters implies that he's being set up for assassination, with the approval of the Consular Service.
Silk is welcomed to New Texas with a giant barbecue, where he sees a trial and learns that assassination of politicians is a legitimate part of the New Texan political process as long as the assassin can show that his victim âneeded killin'â. Back at the embassy he learns more about the murder of Silas Cumshaw, in particular the fact that the killers, three young members of the vile Bonney clan, will be going on trial as assassins, not as common murderers, in three days.
At the barbecue Silk meets Gglafrr Ddespttann Vuvuvu, the ambassador of the z'Srauff, humanoid aliens that look like they evolved from dogs. Part of Silk's mission involves convincing the New Texans to join the Solar League so that the Space Navy can base ships near their planet to counter the threat from the z'Srauff. The Solar League fears the possibility of a z'Srauff sneak attack on the planet.
Silk has determined that he cannot allow the Bonneys to be convicted in the Court of Political Justice, but it's too late to have them tried as common criminals. A conviction would produce a precedent that would devastate the Diplomatic Corps by making every diplomat a legitimate target. Likewise, the Solar League cannot allow the Bonneys to go unpunished.
The last quarter of the story lays out the trial of the Bonney brothers. As amicus curiae Silk introduces evidence to show that the Bonneys assassinated Ambassador Cumshaw at the behest of the z'Srauff. He then persuades the court that it should not have tried the case, because Ambassador Cumshaw was not a politician within the meaning of New Texas law. Having thus got the Bonneys set free, he engages them in a gunfight and kills all three.
Shortly thereafter a z'Srauff battlefleet jumps into Capellan space only to be ambushed by the Solar League's Space Navy and effectively destroyed. After working out a treaty between New Texas and the Solar League, Silk resigns his post, marries a local girl, and takes up residence on New Texas.

Question: What did Stephen Silk do that caused him to be sent away?

He wrote a bad article under a fake name.


The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of Alexei Ivanovich, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is indebted to the Frenchman de Criet and has mortgaged his property in Russia to pay only a small amount of his debt. Upon learning of the illness of his wealthy aunt, "Grandmother", he sends streams of telegrams to Moscow and awaits the news of her demise. His expected inheritance will pay his debts and gain Mademoiselle Blanche de Cominges's hand in marriage.
Alexei is hopelessly in love with Polina, the General's stepdaughter, and swears an oath of servitude to her. He told her while on a walk on the Schlangenberg (a mountain in the German town) that all she had to do was give the word and he would gladly walk off the edge and plummet to his death. This leads to her asking him to go to the town's casino and place a bet for her. He refuses at first but, when goaded and reminded of his oath of undying love and servility, he succumbs and ends up winning at the roulette table. He returns to her the winnings but she will not tell him the reason she needs money. She only laughs in his face (as she does when he professes his love) and treats him with cold indifference, if not downright malice. He only learns the details of the General's and Polina's financial state later in the story through his long-time acquaintance, Mr. Astley. Astley is a shy Englishman who seems to share Alexei's fondness of Polina. He comes from English nobility and has a good deal of money.
One day while Polina and Alexei are on a walk they see Baron and Baroness Wurmerhelm. Polina dares him to insult the aristocratic couple and he does so with little hesitation. This sets off a chain of events that details Mademoiselle Blanche's interest in the General and gets Alexei fired as tutor of the General's children. Shortly after this, Grandmother shows up and surprises the whole party of debtors and indebted. She tells them all that she knows all about the General's debt and why the Frenchman and woman are waiting around the suite day after day. She leaves the party of death-profiteers by saying that none of them are getting any of her money. She then asks Alexei to be her guide around the town famous for its healing waters and infamous for its casino where the tables are stacked with piles of gold; she wants to gamble.
After being ushered to the roulette table, she plays and wins 13,000 Friedrich's d'ors (7000-8000 roubles), a significant amount of money. After a short return to the hotel, she comes back to roulette tables and she starts to get the bug; before she leaves the town, she's lost over a hundred thousand roubles in three days.
When Alexei gets back to his room after sending Grandmother off at the railway station, he's greeted by Polina. She shows him a letter where de Criet says he has started legal proceedings to sell Generals' properties mortgaged to him, but he is returning properties worth fifty thousand roubles to General for Polina's benefit. de Criet says he feels he had fulfilled all his obligations that way. Polina tells Alexei she is de Criet's mistress and she wishes she had fifty thousand to fling at de Criet's face. Upon hearing this, Alexei runs out of the room and to the casino where he in a feverish rush of excitement wins in few hours two hundred thousand florins (100 000 francs) and becomes a rich man. When he gets back to his room and the waiting Polina, he empties his pockets full of gold (Alexei estimates the weight to some 4 kilos) and bank notes onto the bed. At first she accuses him of trying to buy her like de Criet, but then she embraces him. They fall asleep on the couch. Next day, she asks for fifty thousand roubles (25 000 francs) and when he gives it to her, she flings that money at Alexei's face and runs off to Mr. Astley (they had been secretly meeting and exchanging notes and she was supposed to meet him night before but has come by mistake to Alexei's room). He doesn't see her again.
After learning that the General wouldn't be getting his inheritance and that Prince Nilski is penniless, Mademoiselle Blanche leaves the hotel with her mother/chaperone for Paris and seduces Alexei to follow her. Alexei goes with them, and they stay together for almost a month, he allowing Mlle Blanche to spend his entire fortune on Mlle Blanche's personal expenses, carriages and horses, dinner dances and a wedding-party. After getting herself financially secured, in order to get an accepted status in the societies, Mlle Blanche unexpectedly marries the General, who has followed her to Paris.
Alexei starts to gamble to survive. One day he passes Mr. Astley on a park bench in Bad Homburg and has a talk with him. He finds out from Astley that Polina is in Switzerland and actually does love him. Astley tells that Grandmother has died and left Polina and the children financially secured. The General has died in Paris. Astley gives him some money but shows little hope that he will not use it for gambling. Alexei goes home dreaming of going to Switzerland the next day and recollects what made him win at the roulette tables in the past.

Question: What is Alexei's job at the beginning of the story?

Tutor
a tutor working for a Russian family


A woman identifying herself as Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator J. J. "Jake" Gittes to surveil her husband, Hollis Mulwray, chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Gittes tails him, hears him publicly oppose the creation of a new reservoir, and shoots photographs of him with a young woman, which are published on the front page of the following day's paper. Back at his office, Gittes is confronted by a woman who informs him she is the real Evelyn Mulwray, and that he can expect a lawsuit.
Realizing he was set up, Gittes assumes that Mulwray's husband is the real target. Before he can question him, Lieutenant Lou Escobar fishes Mulwray, drowned, from a freshwater reservoir. Under retainer to Mrs. Mulwray, Gittes investigates his suspicions of murder and notices that, although huge quantities of water are released from the reservoir every night, the land is almost dry. Gittes is warned off by Water Department Security Chief Claude Mulvihill and a henchman, who slashes Gittes's nose. Back at his office, Gittes receives a call from Ida Sessions, who identifies herself as the imposter Mrs. Mulwray. She is afraid to identify her employer, but tells Gittes to check the day's obituaries.
Gittes learns that Mulwray was once the business partner of his wife's wealthy father, Noah Cross. Over lunch at his personal club, Cross warns Gittes that he does not understand the forces at work, and offers to double Gittes's fee to search for Mulwray's missing mistress. At the hall of records, Gittes discovers that much of the Northwest Valley has changed ownership. Investigating the valley, he is attacked by angry landowners, who believe he is an agent of the water department attempting to force them out by sabotaging their water supply.
Gittes deduces that the water department is drying the land so it can be bought at a reduced price, and that Mulwray was murdered when he discovered the plan. He discovers that a former retirement home resident is one of the valley's new landowners, and seemingly purchased the property a week after his death. Evelyn and Gittes bluff their way into the home and confirm that the real estate deals are surreptitiously completed in the names of its residents.
After fleeing Mulvihill and his thugs, Gittes and Evelyn hide at Evelyn's house and sleep together. Early in the morning, Evelyn has to leave suddenly; she warns Gittes that her father is dangerous. Gittes follows her car to a house, where he spies her through the windows comforting Mulwray's mistress. He accuses Evelyn of holding the woman against her will, but she confesses that she is her sister.
The next day, an anonymous call draws Gittes to Ida Sessions's apartment; he finds her murdered and Escobar waiting for his arrival. Escobar tells him the coroner's report found salt water in Mulwray's lungs, indicating that he did not drown in the freshwater reservoir. Escobar suspects Evelyn of the murder and tells Gittes to produce her quickly. At Evelyn's mansion, Gittes finds her servants packing her things. He realizes her garden pond is salt water and discovers a pair of bifocals in it. He confronts Evelyn about her "sister"; after Gittes slaps her, she admits that the woman, Katherine, is her sister and her daughter: her father raped her when she was fifteen. She says that the eyeglasses are not Mulwray's, as he did not wear bifocals.
Gittes arranges for the women to flee to Mexico and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's home in Chinatown. He summons Cross to the Mulwray home to settle their deal. Cross admits his intention to annex the Northwest Valley into the City of Los Angeles, then irrigate and develop it. Gittes accuses Cross of murdering Mulwray. Cross takes the bifocals and he and his men force Gittes at gunpoint to drive them to the women. When they reach the Chinatown address, the police are already there and detain Gittes. When Cross approaches Katherine, Evelyn shoots him in the arm and drives away with Katherine. The police open fire, killing Evelyn. Cross clutches Katherine and leads her away, while Escobar orders Gittes released. Lawrence Walsh, one of Gittes's associates, tells him: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Question: What does the real Evelyn Mulwray do when she first meets Jake?

Threatens to sue him.
she files a lawsuit against him