(...) As to the irony in Saki's short story "at large". Here Saki gives the device a unique, double twist, although you can't grasp it till you've read the last lines, and reached the return of the shooters and Nuttel's escape. When Vera starts relating her "Ganges story" about him, what do you understand first ? That she's completely making it up : she knows nothing of Nuttel, she's a mythomaniac who's fooled and scared the poor chap with her hoax about her aunt's tragedy. But not only him. You then realize that you too, the reader, have been taken on a ride by her since, in the first place, you could not but believe that tragical story about the dead shooters - just like Nuttel did. In other words, while Vera was deceiving Nuttel with her lies, Saki/the narrator in his turn was fooling YOU by doing as if he were scoffing at Nuttel, and at Nuttel only.
To sum it up, the irony in The Open Window is twofold : between Saki + Reader at the expense of Nuttel, but above all, given its ending, between Saki + Vera at the expense of the Reader - who's been foolish enough to blindly (flatteringly ?) believe the story was merely designed to make Nuttel its laughing stock. This is no less than a slap in the face of the reader. As to universal credulity and man's willingness to believe anything from anybody (and to gibe his fellow men ?), I leave the conclusion to you :)
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