A Midnight Accident It was a cloudy and moonless night.

t. The sounds of wind howling and leaves rustling could be heard. Due to the examination, I had to devote extra hours to burn the midnight oil in my study and preparations for the examination. [One of my friend/A friend of mine,] Stephen came to my house for mutual study. We revised our exercise books respectively . Not long after that , I went to bed leaving him at about twelve at night. Stephen was feeling [tired/ fatigue/ weary/ exhausted/ worn out] but he wished to finish his work. I was almost asleep, but not completely. [Suddenly/ Out of the blue /All of sudden/ Abruptly], I saw a flame/ flare in my friends room and there was some noise in the room. I got alarmed but could not guess what [the matter was/had happened]. It struck me in a moment that something must [] have gone ( p.p) wrong in the room. My friend might possibly have overturned the lamp and set a desk on fire. I was up from bed in the trance and rushed to the room. I found that my friend was [trying/attempting] to put out the fire with a bed sheet. However it was futile/useless .

[At first/ In the beginning,] I was [nervous/ keyed up] . I could feel that butterflies fluttering in my stomach. But it was not the time for me to be nervous. So, I rushed to the bathroom [immediately/ instantly/ promptly/ swiftly/ in no time/ at the drop of hat] . However, there was very little water which was stored there. My servant Terence was sleeping in another room. I burst open the door, entered the room and woke up him. We took two big buckets full but we found that in spite of Stephen attempt to check the fire, it had spread rapidly . We emptied the buckets over the desk. Luckily /Fortunately, his text book and exercise book which were stored in a shelf at one corner of the room were not spoiled by both fire and water. The fire was put out but it took a long time to clean up the room. My friend was silent all the time, but now I asked him how the incident had happened. He told me that feeling tired, he was dozing over the books when his head struck violently against the oil lamp and overturned it at once. The oil spilt over the table which quickly caught fire. My friend thought that the fire would not spread, and he would be able to check it. So he did not want to disturb me. But it had spread in spite of his efforts. My friend was somewhat ashamed that he had given us all this trouble and inconvenience , but I felt happy that I had succeeded in keeping his mind at ease . Finally, the day had come to the end. I felt glad because in the end, we were all safe. It was indeed an experience for me.