the living room in their wet clothes and muddy boots. This is probably why Saki titles his story "The Open Window" and features it in the setting throughout the story. He wants the reader to accept the fact that the tall window would be standing open and that they men would be expected to return through it.

Framton has two reasons for grabbing his walking stick and running out of the house. One of these is that he believes the three men are ghosts returning from the dead. But another reason for his being so terrified is that all three of them are carrying guns. Ghosts are bad enough, but ghosts carrying guns are much worse. Framton is really afraid of getting shot. He thinks he is in danger from the moment the men appear outside, because they could all start firing at him any time they wanted to. The fact that the big French window has been standing wide open ever since Framton arrived indicates that he has no protection whatever. The men can walk right into the living room carrying their guns.

Framton is characterized as a very nervous man. He would be nervous enough just being introduced to three strange men in a strange setting. These situations are always a little awkward for all of us. But to be confronted by three strangers who supposedly died several years ago, and strangers who are all armed with guns, would be too much.

There have been many ghost stories invented in which a person dies of fright, either because he sees a ghost or thinks he has seen a ghost. Saki gives his ghost story a comical twist by making his viewpoint character stay very much alive after encountering, not one, but three ghosts and then running off down the country road with a surprising burst of energy.

Vera is a bored fifteen-year-old girl who is having fun at Mr. Framton's expense.  Framton has come to the country to take a rest because he is having a nervous breakdown.  A nervous breakdown is an emotional disorder so he is rather unstable when he shows up.  He does not know the Sappleton's.  His sister gave him a letter of introduction to them so that he would not be alone, and he would know someone around him.

"Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing." (page 1)

When Vera finds out that he doesn't know anyone in the area,including her aunt, her active imagination takes over.  She tells him that her aunt had a great tragedy three years ago.  She points to the open window.  She explains to Framton that her aunt's husband and two young brothers left through that window to go hunting three years ago on this very day. They never returned, and their bodies were never recovered. She tells Framton that her aunt continues to think they will return, and she keeps the window open so that they could return. This whole scenario is a product of Vera's imagination. 

When the aunt finally shows up, she excuses the open window explaining that her husband and brothers will be returning soon from hunting and they always come in through the window.  Framton tells her,

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise." (page 2)

However, when he is telling the aunt this, he notices that her eyes keep going to the window, and that she is half listening to him. She is bored with stories of his illness.  Finally she brightens as the hunters come toward the window.  Vera gives Framton a look that shows sympathy for her aunt.  However, when Framton looks out the window, here come the three men and the dog. Thinking that the men were ghosts, he grabs his stick and hat and gets out of there. 

The fact is that the men never died, they just went hunting.  Vera had just made up that story. When the adults start talking about why Mr. Framton had left in such a hurry, Vera, again, invents a story.  She tells the adults she is sure it is because of the dog.

"He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him."  (page 3)

Again, her overactive imagination has taken over, and she is telling stories.  Saki confirms this with the last line of the story.

"Romance at short notice was her speciality." (last line)

"The Open Window" was written over a hundred years ago. Doctors knew very little about such things as "nervous disorders," "mental disorders," and "psychological disorders." There were no tranquilizers available, and doctors were hardly likely to prescribe liquor, opium or morphine. It was safe and commonplace to prescribe an ocean voyage or a stay in the country. There are several Sherlock Holmes tales in which the brilliant but eccentric and hypersensitive detective has left London seeking a rest-cure in the English countryside. One of the best of these is "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot."

Framton Nuttel is staying in the English countryside because several London doctors have suggested it, which shows how much doctors thought alike in Saki's time and how little they really knew about what we would now call neurosis. Framton appears to be a gentleman of leisure who can afford to consult multiple doctors and to travel anywhere he pleases and stay as long as he likes. It certainly seems logical that a vacation in a peaceful country setting would be good for anyone's frazzled nerves. Framton is probably suffering from too much of the kind of stress common to big cities, including noise, traffic, overcrowding, air pollution, and crime. He expects to meet a family of sedate, church-going country people but couldn't have entered a more unnerving environment if he had gone into a lunatic asylum. It is because he expects this family to be so humdrum that he is taken in by Vera's wild tale about the three men getting sucked into a bog and her aunt expecting them to return to life after being dead for three years. 

One of Saki's best-loved stories, "The Open Window" exemplifies what one critic says is

that indolent, delightfully amusing world where nothing is ever solved, nothing altered, a world in short extremely like our own.

The narrative centers around a practical joke played upon the rattled Framton Nuttel, whose doctor has prescribed for him a "nerve cure" for which he is to go to the country and have "complete rest  and an absence of mental excitement." Framton's sister has lived in the countryside, so she writes the letters of introduction for her brother which he can present to Mrs. Sappleton. Since she is not ready to greet Nuttel, Mrs. Sappleton sends her niece Vera to entertain Framton while he waits for her. However, the precocious niece entertains herself by playing the practical joke of making him believe that her uncle and Mrs. Stappleton's younger brothers and the dog disappeared when they went out on a hunt. When they do return, Framton is so horrified by the perceived "ghosts" that he gets up and runs.

Framton Nuttel is a stranger to the country and the Sappleton house. He has a letter of introduction from his sister so he can make acquaintances in the area. While waiting for Mrs. Sappleton, her niece Vera tells him a very creepy story about how her uncles were lost in a bog while hunting three years ago. She claims that her aunt leaves the French doors open just in case they ever come home. This sad tale is spun to make it seem as if the tragedy still haunts the house and Mrs. Sappleton's heart. Vera is a clever story-teller, though. She sets Framton up for the scare of his life by telling him about what the men were wearing when they left, as well as what Ronnie usually sings on his way back from hunting.

"Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing, 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her. . ."

These clues are exactly what sets Framton on the run from the house. When he sees the men coming and hears Ronnie actually singing the song, he takes flight. Vera set Framton up by providing him with specific details to what she witnesses every time the men go hunting; and when Framton hears the song, the text says, "Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat." Therefore, Framton leaves the Sappleton's house after being duped into believing a ghost story told by a young girl.

As Framton is talking to Mrs. Sappleton about his health, she remarks that the men of the household have returned from their shooting expedition just in time for tea. Vera has told Framton that the men went out shooting three years ago and died when they were swallowed up by a "treacherous piece of bog." Further, she tells Framton that her aunt has never given up hope that they will return, keeping the window open "every evening till it is quite dusk."

Conversing with a deranged woman is bad enough for Framton, but when he turns around, he sees that Vera has an expression of horror on her face. He then observes that there are actually three male figures advancing across the lawn toward the open window. Framton grabs his hat and stick and runs out of the house. Mrs. Sappleton later makes the conventional remark that he looked as though he had seen a ghost. In fact, Framton thought he had seen three ghosts—and a ghostly dog for good measure.

Vera, of course, uses the dog to explain Framton's abrupt departure, saying that he is terrified of dogs after being hunted by a pack of pariah dogs in India. This shows that, although she discerned in Framton a perfect audience for one of her more audacious performances, Vera will tell such stories to anyone out of sheer artistic pleasure.

The following paragraph near the end of the story shows us that Framton Nuttel leaves in a hurry:

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

Particular phrases that suggest speed include "grabbed wildly," headlong retreat," "run into the hedge," and "imminent collision." We can picture the nervous Mr. Nuttel, thinking he has seen ghosts, racing for his walking stick and hat and running out the door and down the drive so fast that everything is a blur. We can also seeing him running into the road without looking in his haste and forcing a cyclist to crash into a hedge to avoid ramming into him. We could picture this as a scene in a comic movie.

The sense of Mr. Nuttel having left in a hurry continues as Mr. Sappleton asks,

Who was that who bolted out as we came up?

"Bolted out" is another phrase that suggests a very hasty departure. Then we hear from Mrs. Sappleton that Mr. Nuttel

dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology .... One would think he had seen a ghost.

"Dashed" and "without a word" indicate speed, as does the phrase "seen a ghost," which suggests he was badly frightened.

We as readers know, though the Sappletons do not, that Mr. Nuttel is badly frightened. He has been too quick to believe Vera's fanciful story about ghosts. She has managed to get rid of this tiresome guest who does nothing but talk about his medical issues, and she has another handy, if fantastic, story available to tell her aunt and uncle to explain why he left.

Saki sets up Framton's anxiety and Vera's propensity for storytelling at the story's beginning.  As Vera "entertains" Framton by asking questions and then telling him the horrific (but unbeknownst to Framton, the fictional) tale of her aunt's tragedy (the simultaneous deaths of her aunt's husband and two brothers while out hunting), she exacerbates his frantic nature.

When Vera finishes her story about the men dying and her aunt's inability to get over them, she begins to gaze out the open window through which the murderous bog is visible.  As Framton sees three figures walking toward them, he is overcome by fear, thinking that they are ghosts.  So he

"grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision."

Vera, of course, does not confess to her aunt or three live relatives the prank that she played on the unsuspecting Framton Nuttel.