is a bachelor. The aunt has noticed that the children are getting onhis nerves. The aunt describes him as hard and unsympathetic. With the children’s behavior, the bachelor frowns and then begins to scowl. 

“You don’t seem to be a success as a storyteller," said the bachelor suddenly from his corner. The aunt bristled in instant defense at this unexpected attack.

The aunt challenges the bachelor to tell the children a story and see if he can keep their attention.  What the aunt forgets is that this is a man who has no children and will walk away from them at the end of the train ride.

Accepting the dare to tell a better story to the children, the bachelor begins with great intonation in his voice. The bachelor becomes the omniscient narrator of the story that he tells. The bachelor provides a seemingly innocuous story in the beginning; however, as the story progresses, it becomes violent.

The children interrupt him with questions which he does not seem to mind answering. His story rivets the children’s attention.  His characters are intense and interesting. As he answers the boy’s questions, it is obvious that the man has a quick wit and intelligence.

He impresses both the children and the aunt with his storytelling abilities. Surprisingly, the bachelor is just as patient with the children as is the aunt. He brings logic and information in his story with its beginning, middle, and end.

Although the aunt is impressed with his storytelling, she accosts him for telling the children am improper story with such a violent ending.  The little girl who dies is killed by a wolf who hears her drop her good behavior and character medals. When the bachelor leaves the train, he tells the aunt that he kept the children quiet for ten minutes longer than she did.

The bachelor’s view of the world, although harsh and violent, seems more accurate than the aunts.  Her story ended with a little girl being rescued.  The moral of his story is that goodness does not always triumph and sometimes good behavior is not rewarded. 

As he leaves the train calling the aunt “an unhappy woman,” the bachelor seems glad that for the future the children will be begging for his style of story.

The answer is C:  The young man is annoyed by the children and the activity in which their aunt engages them.

In the first paragraph of Saki's short story, the bachelor sits as far away from the other occupants as he can. They are described in this manner:

Both the aunt and the children were conversational in a limited, persistent way, reminding one of the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged.

Obviously, they are annoying as they talk. Then the boy does not sit quietly, but instead he pounds a cushion making the dust rise about the compartment of the train; his aunt keeps saying "Don't" to the children who respond with "Why?" indicating that they fear nothing from her and are not respectful.

It is clear that this bachelor is going to have a frustrating ride as he is already annoyed by the lack of discipline which the aunt exerts over the unmannerly children who crowd the compartment and are impolite in their chatter as well as disrespectful to their inept aunt.

What follows in Saki's clever story within a story is quite humorous as it demonstrates the power of understatement.

In their narratives, authors use various methods of characterization:  through a physical description

1. through a physical description of the character
2. through the character's actions
3. through the character's thoughts, feeling, and speeches
4. through the comments and reactions of other characters
5. through direct statements giving the writer's opinion of the character.

The first four methods are called indirect methods of characterization while the last method is direct characterization since with it the author tells rather than dramatizes.

In his witty short story, "The Storyteller," Saki presents his character, the bacelor, mainly through his speech and comments and reactions toward other characters with some characterization through the reactions of the aunt.

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With his own inimitable wit and psychological insight, Saki presents the reader with what seems a confirmed bachelor who is uncomfortably confined to a compartment on a train with an indulgent and ineffective aunt and three unruly children, who "are converstional in a limited, persistent way."  They also move around the compartment; the boy pounds the cushion right next to the bachelor. As it becomes apparent that the bachelor is very irritated by this intrusion upon his polite distance when he glares at her twice after looking at Cyril who seems bent upon reciting a line two thousand times, the aunt summons the children to her and attempts to pacify them with a story about a good little girl.

Interrupted by petulant questions from one girl, the aunt essays to entertain the children unsuccessfully.  Disgruntled, the bachelor abruptly from his corner tells her,

"You don't seem to be a success as a story-teller."

In defence, the aunt challenges him to relate a story himself. With ironic wit, the bachelor does this, changing the story about the little girl to one about Bertha, who has three medals for her goodness which she constantly wears so everyone will know how "horribly good" she is.  This paradoxical phrase intrigues the children who listen eagerly to the bachelor's unorthodox tale of Bertha's being invited to the Prince's park which is inhabited by pigs. Instead of the "happily ever after" ending, the satirical bachelor tells the children of a wolf who pursues Bertha, who is able to successfully hide from it until her good conduct medals clink together, betraying her to the wolf and she is eaten. At this ending, the aunt's initial admiration turns to disapproval, "A most improper story," she chides him.  However, the bachelor congratulations himself for his victory over this woman,

Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of Templecombe station; "for the next six months or so those children will assail her in public with demands for an improper story!"

No meek and retiring bachelor, Saki's character has pulled out his sardonic verbal skills and ironic wit to battle the irritations of the children and their ineffective aunt who have disturbed his comfort on the train.