arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves."

Vera bases her ghost story on a number of true facts. It is because of the element of truth that Framton is so frightened when the men appear, all carrying guns. They have a little brown spaniel with them. Mr. Sappleton is carrying his white waterproof coat. And Ronnie bursts out singing "Bertie, why do you bound?" What is not true, of course, is that the three men died when they were sucked into a bog. They are not dead. It was ingenious of Vera to twist the truth in such a way that her story is so effective. Mrs. Sappleton is acting the part Vera cast her for. Ronnie sings "Bertie, why do you bound?" just as Vera knew he would, since he always does the same thing. And Vera herself puts on an excellent act as a frightened child to lend additional credence to her ghost story.

The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. 

Vera is telling a story within a story. One story is Saki's, and one is Vera's. But Vera's story has two dimensions: there is the truth and there is the fiction. 

The Open Window is a short story about a young girl, Vera, with a very active imagination. Frampton Nuttel has come to the country on his doctor's orders. He suffers from being highly nervous and anxious, so his doctor thought living in the country for awhile might help him. His sister lives near by, so she has agreed to make sure he knows everyone in town. While he is at the house of Vera's aunt, Vera tells him that her aunt will be down in a moment. Vera talks to Frampton, but finds him extremely boring, so she decides to have a little fun with him. She points to the big open window and concocts a ghostly story about it.

"Out through that window, three years ago today, her husband and her two younger brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it."

Vera goes on to say that her aunt waits every day for the three of them to return through the open window along with their spaniel. Frampton feels sorry for Vera's aunt, Vera makes Frampton think her aunt is not mentally stable. When the aunt appears, she tells Frampton that her husband and brothers will be home shortly, that they had gone on a hunting trip. Frampton just sits there, feeling sorry for the woman. However, things change when the aunt informs him that the men have returned. Frampton looks in horror as he sees the men and dog returning through the window. Frampton, in his nervous state, jumps up and leaves the house, without a word. They all wonder why the strange man left in such a hurry, and Vera tells them he was afraid of the dog. She makes up another story of how Frampton had an encounter with a dog and was now terrified of all dogs. 

Vera made up the whole story because she was bored. Poor Frampton didn't wait for an explanation of the events. He was terrified by what he was seeing. The mind is an amazing thing. Vera had told him a story, and he believed every word. 

Vera is a very imaginative but cruel girl. Although she know Mr. Nuttel is on the verge of a nervous break-down, she fabricates an intricate story that scares him almost to death and drives him out of the house in order to entertain herself. The story consists of two lies. The first lie is a story about her aunt's husband and two brothers. According to Vera, three years ago a "tragedy" occurred when the men went hunting and never returned. She mentions that they went out though the French window. The second lie is that the aunt keeps the window open in hopes of her husband's and brothers' return. In reality, the men were alive and had gone hunting just a few hours earlier. Upon seeing them return, Nuttel goes "nuts."

The second story she tells is to her aunt. When she asks why Nuttel ran off, Vera replies, "I expect it was the spaniel; he told me he had a horror of dogs." She then proceeds to describe an incident where Nuttell  spent the night in a grave while rabid dogs snarled above him.

One of the tall tales Vera tells Framton Nuttel is that her aunt's husband and two brothers were killed three years ago by being sucked into a bog while out hunting.

"In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog."

The other tall tale is that Mrs. Sappleton, Vera's aunt, lost her mind because of the terrible tragedy. This explains why the poor woman leaves the French window open. For three years she has been waiting for her men to come home for tea and to enter through that window.

"Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do."

Vera gives Framton a description of the men, so that when he sees them approaching the open window he will believe they must be the men who were killed three years ago and will naturally take them to be ghosts. She tells Framton about the spaniel that went with them, about the white waterproof her aunt's husband was carrying, and about how Ronnie always sang, "Bertie, why do you bound?" as he was approaching the house.

When Mrs. Sappleton appears she impresses Framton as being insane, because she immediately seems to verify what Vera has been telling him about her.

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way."

Framton doesn't panic until Mrs. Sappleton makes a startling announcement.

"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

Naturally he thinks she is just imagining things. He is seated in such a position that he cannot see the open window or anything outside. He turns to give Vera a look of understanding sympathy, only to see that "the child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes." Then when Framton turns to look out the window, he is sure the three approaching men must be ghosts. The fact that all three are carrying guns naturally makes them more frightening, and the fact that they are covered with mud creates an impression in his mind that they have somehow managed to climb back out of the bog that killed them three years ago.

So the two tall tales are (1) that Mrs. Sappleton's husband and brothers were killed three years ago, and (2) that her aunt became permanently insane from the shock of losing them and still waits for them to return every night through that open window.