What is the motivation of the protagonist? (What do they want? Why do they behave the way they do?) In the short story The Monkey's Paw by W. W. Jacobs

What can be inferred from the following sentence in the passage? then he asked me my name. scarcely had i uttered it when he made a gesture of astonishment. a) the sentence implies that the attendant knows the colonel. b) the sentence implies that the colonel is giving up on life. c) the sentence implies that the attendant is going to get fired. d) the sentence implies that the colonel recognizes the attendant's name.