Question

Read the following excerpt from a short story by Saki.

Theodoric Voler was a very proper man. He had been brought up protected from the coarser realities of life. To a man of his temperament and upbringing even a simple railway journey was crammed with petty annoyances and minor discords. He had been staying at a country vicarage. The pony carriage that was to take him to the train station had never been properly ordered, and when the moment for his departure drew near the handy-man who should have produced the required article was nowhere to be found. In this emergency Theodoric, to his very intense disgust, found himself obliged to collaborate with the vicar's daughter in the task of harnessing the pony, which necessitated groping about in an ill-lighted outhouse called a stable, and smelling very like one—except in patches where it smelt of mice. Without being actually afraid of mice, Theodoric classed them among the coarser incidents of life. As he boarded the train, Theodoric's nervous imagination accused himself of exhaling a weak odor of stable-yard, and possibly of displaying a moldy straw or two on his usually well-brushed garments. Fortunately the only other occupant of the train compartment, a lady of about the same age as himself, seemed inclined for slumber rather than scrutiny. The train had scarcely attained its normal speed before he became reluctantly but vividly aware that he was not alone with the slumbering lady; he was not even alone in his own clothes. A warm, creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the unwelcome and highly resented presence, unseen but poignant, of a strayed mouse, that had evidently dashed into its present retreat during the episode of the pony harnessing. Furtive stamps and shakes and wildly directed pinches failed to dislodge the intruder, and the lawful occupant of the clothes lay back against the cushions and endeavored rapidly to evolve some means for putting an end to the dual ownership.

Nothing less drastic than partial disrobing would ease him of his tormentor, and to undress in the presence of a lady, even for so laudable a purpose, was an idea that made his eartips tingle in a blush of abject shame. And yet—the lady in this case was to all appearances soundly and securely asleep. Theodoric was goaded into the most audacious undertaking of his life. Crimsoning to the hue of a beetroot and keeping an agonized watch on his slumbering fellow-traveller, he swiftly and noiselessly secured the ends of his railway-rug to the racks on either side of the carriage, so that a substantial curtain hung athwart the compartment.

Based on what you have read thus far, what type of person is Theodoric Voler?

A. Impatient and annoyed

B. Well-kept and proper

C. Joyful and well-traveled

D. Intelligent and very shy

Answer 1

A