His mouth swimming means his mouth was watery
His clowning grin means he was foolish or behaved like a clown
Please, show me how to ride a bike!
I have found the excerpt and the choices from another source. I will paste them below:
<span>They laughed at his wild excess of speech, of feeling, and of gesture. They were silent before the maniac fury of his sprees, which occurred almost punctually every two months, and lasted two or three days. They picked him foul and witless from the cobbles, and brought him home . . . . And always they handled him with tender care, feeling something strange and proud and glorious lost in [him]. . . . He was a stranger to them: no one—not even Eliza—ever called him by his first name. He was—and remained thereafter—"Mister" Gant. . . .
</span>A. They spread gossip about his unusual conduct.
B. They consider him a talented man and good friend.
C. They think he is a bit peculiar, yet they revere him.
D. They worry about his excessive behaviors.
The excerpt would tell us that Oliver's neighbors (C) think he is a bit peculiar, yet they revere him.
We know that the neighbors think Oliver is peculiar or strange through the first half of the excerpt and from the line "he was a stranger to them". Despite this strangeness though, we can also infer that the neighbors revere or deeply respect him because they still "handled him with tender care".
