Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
his environment not fantastically inaccurate. Feelings reasonably meshed—at least neither volcanic nor frozen. Thoughts and values in reasonable order. Yes, I agree, a satisfactory test subject. Except...." "And have to scheme up some other excuse for free-touring the Cosmos with backtracking permitted." "Exactly!" The Being and his Coadjutor understood each other very well "Besides what? Come on, spit it out!" The Invisible Being was the bluff, blunt type. "Well," said his less hearty but unswervingly honest companion, "I'm Ernie blinked. After a moment, he pointed toward the center of the Ernie Meeker went home and shaved. Five days—and shaves—later, he "That's true, all right," Ernie agreed, trying to remember how well he Next morning, he was still using the freak blade, but with a persistent though very slight uneasiness. Things should behave as you expected them to, in accordance with their flimsy souls, he told himself at the So Ernie Meeker pushed through the little slot beside the mirror and That day, Ernie felt a little sick, somehow. After dinner, he decided soda, preparatory to plunging the spoon into it, it seemed to him that Ernie sat down suddenly on the toilet seat. The spoon rattled against : Place one pinch in fuel tank, fill with water. Add water eye-testing in between, Ernie took up a little of the white powder on abandoned the notion and even refrained from sniffing the stuff—after all, the human body is mostly water. After reducing the quantity several times, he gingerly dumped at most four or five grains on the flat edge of the washbowl and then used the touch the stupid squashed ovoid of water. "Ernie! Are you going to be much longer?" The knock hadn't been loud and his widowed sister's voice was more apologetic than peremptory, but he jumped, of course. "I am testing something," he started to say and changed it mid-way. It came out, "I am be out in a minute." He scrubbed off the spot with a dry washrag, on second thought put a Sleep refused even to flirt with Ernie, his mind was full of so many things, especially calculations involving the distance between his car and the house and the length of the garden hose. In desperation, as the white hours accumulated and his thoughts began to squirm, he grabbed up the detective story he'd bought at the corner newsstand. He Ernie Meeker had discovered, inside the birthday box that was himself, have to be revising all his opinions and beliefs every couple of days at least—maybe every couple of hours. It seemed a dreadful, literally maddening prospect—his mind would be able to? It was an abnormal, dangerous, temporary sensitivity, he told himself, generated by the excitement of the crazy discovery he'd made in the bathroom. Like the thoughts of a drowning man, riffling an infinity-paneled adventure-comic of his life as he bolts his last rough Ernie Meeker was not a drinking man, then. A pint had stood a week on For want of a better place, Ernie dropped the rubber tube from the stared doubtfully at the uncapped gas tank. The tank had been almost empty when he'd last driven his car, he knew, because he'd been waiting until payday to gas up. Now he had used the tube to siphon out what emptied the fuel line and carburator, more or less. Further than that, in the way of engine hygiene, Ernie's strictly He hesitated. At his feet, the garden hose gurgled noisily over the curb into the gutter it had vindicated his midnight estimate, proving just long enough. He looked uneasily up and down the dawning street and was relieved to find it still empty. He wished fervently, not for with some friend who knew more than himself about motors (he hadn't decided anyway who that would be). It would be just too silly to this all was, how jarringly implausible even on such hypotheses as practical jokes, secret product perhaps military, or mad inventor (except himself). At that point, simple faith came to Ernie's rescue: in the same wearing the dark blue uniform that always made him look for a moment unpleasantly like a policeman. Ernie swung the hose around, flipping his thumb over the end to make shaking his feet a little now and then and glancing back several times over his shoulder without slowing down. Ernie felt light-headed. He decided there was enough water in the gas tank, capped it, and momentarily continued to water the lawn. "Ernie! Come on in and have breakfast!" He heeded his sister's call, telling himself it would be a good idea "to give the stuff time to mix" before testing the engine. He had divined her question and was ready with an answer. "I've just found out that we're supposed to water our lawns only before Fabius. On the whole, Ernie was glad his sister was in the car when he turned the key in the starter—it forced him to be calm and collected, motor started right up and began purring powerfully. Ernie's sister "But then how ... Ernie, didn't you once tell me the gauge doesn't shoulders and concentrated on driving. His feeling of excitement was spoiled, but a few minutes of silence brought it back. He thought of Ernie chose a moment when his sister was out of the room to ask if he'd ever heard of a white powder that would turn water into gasoline They always tell this story about how this man had a white powder or something and demonstrated it once with a pail of water and then With considerable difficulty, Ernie convinced his uncle that he had him . When you see him—and be sure to make that soon—tell him from me that—" and Uncle Fabius began an that morning. He similarly retreated to driving. Stopping for a railroad crossing, he braked too hard and the car motor, starting readily again, cut short her remark and Ernie didn't To tell the truth, Ernie wasn't feeling as elated about today's his finger on the reason: It was the completely ... well, arbitrary way in which the white powder had come into his possession. From that moment, the fuel-powder became a trial to Ernie rather than a dimness and excitement of Saturday morning he'd put the water in some other car's gas tank, perhaps Mr. Jones's. He could usually argue such ideas away, but they kept coming back. And yet he did no more bathroom testing. Of course the car still ran. He even fueled it once again with the garden hose, sniffing the nozzle to make sure it hadn't somehow got he heard a window in Mr. Jones's house slam loudly. It unsettled him. Coming home the next day, he caught his sister and Mr. Jones consulting about something on the latter's doorsteps, which unsettled him further. it around with him day and night. Bill spotted it once down at the office and by an unhappy coincidence needed some bicarb just then for a troubled stomach. Ernie explained on the spur of the moment that he was Meanwhile, besides the problem of the white powder, Ernie was having Like many another car-owning commuter, Ernie found the traffic and During those brief, swift, crowded trips Ernie, generally looking Ernie couldn't figure out the reason and wasn't at all sure he liked She was the sort of girl Ernie dreamed about, improperly. Tall, blonde out from their morning conversations. He hadn't got to the point of asking her to lunch, but he was prodding himself. Why such a girl should ever have asked him for a match in the first was a mystery to him. He finally asked her about it in what he hoped was a joking way, though she seemed to know a lot more about joking than he did. "Well, I'll tell you then, Ernie, and I've got to admit it's something Is that what I do?" "No, Ernie, though you're doing it now," she told him, shaking her

<question>:
Why did Ernie want to put water in his car?

<options>:
A He forgot to buy gas
B He was feeling ill from lunch
C He'd lost his mind
D He was conducting an experiment

<answer>:

D