The Third Level
Q.1.Why did Charley rush back from the third level?
Answer: When Charley took out the modem currency to pay for the two tickets to Galesburg, the ticket clerk
accused him of trying to cheat him. He threatened to hand Charley over to the police. Charley was frightened
and he decided to rush back from the third level, lest he was arrested and put into prison.
Q.2.What did Charley learn about Sam from the stamp and coin store?
Answer: From the stamp and coin store Charley gets to know that Sam had bought old style currency worth
eight hundred dollars. This money was sufficient to set him up in a little hay, feed and grain business in
Galesburg.
Q.3. How does Charley describe Galesburg as it used to be in 1894?
Answer: Charley describes Galesburg as a quiet, simple and peaceful place with big old frame houses, huge
lawns and tremendous trees. The summer evenings were rather long and people sat out on their lawns in a
peaceful world, men smoking cigars and women waving palm-leaf fans.
Q.4.How did Charley get lost in the Grand Central station on two previous occasions?
Answer: Grand Central Station was like a maze. Charley always lost his way. Once he got into a tunnel
about a mile long and came out in the lobby of Roosevelt Hotel. On another occasion, he came up in an
office building.
Q.5. How does Charley, the narrator describe the third level at Grand Central Station?
Answer: Charley says that the rooms on the third level were smaller than that of the second level. There
were fewer ticket windows and train gates and the information booth in the centre was wood and old looking.
There were open- flame gaslights and brass spittoons on the floor. Everyone at the station was dressed in
nineteenth century dresses.
Q.6. What Does the Third Level Refer to?
Answer: The Third Level is a product of charley’s imagination. He finds it a place where he can escape from
the modern world of insecurity and fear.
Q.7. What is a first-day cover?
Answer: When a new stamp is issued, stamp collectors buy some and use them to mail envelopes to
themselves on the very first day of sale and the postmark proves the date. The envelope is called a first-day
cover. They are never opened. You just put a blank paper inside the envelope.
Q.8. How did Charley compare the Grand Central to a huge tree? Why?
Answer: Charley always found new tunnels and staircase at the Grand Central. He began to suspect that
Grand Central was like a huge tree. It used to push out new corridors and tunnels like the roots of a tree.
Q.9.How did Charley learn that his psychiatrist friend had reached Galesburg of 1894?
Answer: One day, Charley discovered a first-day cover in his stamp collection. It was addressed to his
grandfather at his Galesburg address. In it, he found a letter of July 18, 1894, addressed to him by Sam. This
proved that Sam had reached Galesburg of 1894.
Q.10. What, according to the psychiatrist, was Charley’s problem?
Answer: Charley told the psychiatrist about his belief in the existence of the third level at the Grand Central
Station but was told that it was only a waking- dream wish fulfilment. The psychiatrist also added that Charley
was unhappy because of the insecurity, fear, war, worry and that he just wanted to escape just like everyone
else.
