The Interlopers
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40 free The Interlopers trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Interlopers is a classroom favourite among short stories. In just a few pages, Saki takes two neighbours who have hated each other all their lives, traps them side by side on a stormy night, and lets them talk. Its ending is one of the best known in short fiction. This quiz follows the story from start to finish: how the quarrel began, what each man wants as the night opens, the accident that changes everything, the offer that ends the feud, and the last line. It also covers the setting, the storytelling choices behind the twist, and the life of the writer behind the pen name. It is written for students revising the story for class, teachers who want a ready-made reading check, and anyone who read it years ago and still remembers how it ends. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play straight through or print the questions for a group.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Interlopers, what do the figures running down the hill toward the trapped men turn out to be?
Wolves
Wolves is the story's final word, and Saki stops there without showing what happens next. Until that moment both men believe rescue has arrived.
Q 02The Interlopers author Saki was reportedly shot by a sniper just after telling a soldier to put out what?
A cigarette
A cigarette is what several accounts say he ordered put out, making the command his last words. He was sheltering in a shell crater at the time.
Q 03In The Interlopers, what does the trapped Ulrich offer to share with Georg as a first gesture of kindness?
His wine flask
His wine flask is the turning point. Georg refuses, saying he does not drink with an enemy, yet the offer is what he recalls when he finally accepts friendship.
Q 04In The Interlopers, what kind of tree crashes down in the storm and pins both enemies to the ground?
A beech
A beech brings the two men down side by side, almost close enough to touch. Ulrich later scoffs that the trees on this land cannot even stand upright in a breath of wind.
Q 05In The Interlopers, what first took the disputed forest land away from the Znaeym family?
A lawsuit
A lawsuit handed the land to the Gradwitz family, but the losers never accepted the judgment of the courts. Raids and scandals have soured relations ever since.
Q 06Saki, author of The Interlopers, enlisted at 43, refused an officer's commission and was killed in which war?
World War I
World War I began when he was officially too old to enlist, yet he joined up as an ordinary trooper. The Interlopers reached book form only after his death.
Q 07Saki, whose The Interlopers ends on a famous twist, is often compared to which American short-story writer?
O. Henry
O. Henry built stories such as The Gift of the Magi around surprise endings, the same trick Saki plays here. Saki is also often likened to the wit Dorothy Parker.
Q 08In The Interlopers, how does Saki describe the land the two families have fought over for generations?
It offers poor sport
It offers poor sport, being steep and thinly stocked with game, yet it is the most jealously guarded of all Ulrich's possessions. He ends up calling it a stupid strip of forest.
Q 09In The Interlopers, what does the German particle von in Ulrich von Gradwitz's name traditionally signal?
Noble descent
Noble descent is what von marks in German surnames, which suits a man with wide forest lands to patrol. The Znaeyms, by contrast, are described as petty landowners.
Q 10Which writer signed The Interlopers as Saki but published a history of the Russian Empire under his real name?
H. H. Munro
H. H. Munro, Hector Hugh in full, first used the name Saki on political sketches that parodied Alice in Wonderland for the Westminster Gazette.
Q 11In The Interlopers, the quarrel over the forest began in the days of which relative of Ulrich von Gradwitz?
His grandfather
His grandfather won the land, and the bitterness has now run through three generations. Under Ulrich it has turned from a family quarrel into a personal one.
Q 12In The Interlopers, what offence does Ulrich accuse Georg of committing on the Gradwitz forest lands?
Poaching
Poaching is the charge Ulrich throws at his trapped enemy, along with the name forest-thief. Georg has just jeered that Ulrich is snared in a stolen forest.
Q 13In The Interlopers, what is each man holding when Ulrich and Georg come face to face in the forest?
A rifle
Q 21In The Interlopers, what leaves Georg nearly blind as he lies trapped beside his lifelong enemy?
Blood in his eyes
Blood in his eyes, first trickling and later caked, means Georg has to rely on Ulrich to say who is coming down the hill. It is also his first excuse for turning down a drink.
Q 22In The Interlopers, what does each trapped man privately pray for once the two have made peace?
His men arriving first
His men arriving first is each man's silent wish, and it is a neat reversal. Minutes earlier each wanted his own side on the scene first in order to finish the other off.
Q 23In The Interlopers, why does Georg decide the approaching figures must be Ulrich's men?
A rifle is in each man's hand and murder in each man's mind, yet neither fires. Saki says a civilised man cannot easily shoot a neighbour down without a word spoken.
Q 14In The Interlopers, what feeling toward Georg first stirs in Ulrich as he watches his enemy fight the pain?
Pity
Pity, something like a throb of it, comes over Ulrich as Georg holds back groans of pain and weariness. From that moment the old fierce hatred begins to die down.
Q 15In The Interlopers, what does Ulrich promise if the Gradwitz men arrive before the Znaeym party?
His enemy is freed first
His enemy is freed first, he says, and treated as though he were a guest. It reverses the threats the two had traded minutes earlier, when each planned to let the other die.
Q 16In The Interlopers, how does Ulrich react when he realises what is really running toward the two trapped men?
He laughs
He laughs, an idiotic chattering sound that Saki calls the noise of a man unstrung with hideous fear. It is the first sign Georg gets that something is wrong.
Q 17In The Interlopers, Georg invites Ulrich to keep Sylvester night under his roof; which festive night is that?
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is called Silvester in German-speaking Europe because 31 December is the feast day of Saint Sylvester, a fourth-century pope.
Q 18In The Interlopers, what do the two reconciled men raise together to summon help through the trees?
A hunting call
A hunting call, long and drawn out, is what the two send up during a lull in the wind. It does bring company down the hillside, though not the kind they hoped for.
Q 19In The Interlopers, whom has Ulrich posted in ambush on the crest of the hill to watch for thieves?
His foresters
His foresters wait on the hilltop while Ulrich strays off alone, hoping to meet Georg man to man with nobody to witness it. The wish is promptly granted.
Q 20Who tells the story of The Interlopers, reporting the private thoughts of both trapped men?
An omniscient narrator
An omniscient narrator stands outside the action and sees into both minds, so readers know Ulrich's hatred is fading before he says a word about it.
He brought only seven
He brought only seven men, and Ulrich has just counted nine or ten figures. The sum reassures both of them for a few more seconds.
Q 24In The Interlopers, what does Ulrich suspect when Georg stays silent for so long after the offer of friendship?
He has fainted
He has fainted from the pain of his injuries, Ulrich thinks, but Georg is only weighing the offer. When the answer comes, it is spoken slowly and in jerks.
Q 25In The Interlopers, what saves Ulrich's feet from being crushed when the tree lands across his legs?
His heavy boots
His heavy boots, made for a day's shooting, keep his feet whole, though both legs stay pinned. One arm is numb beneath him and the other is tangled in branches.
Q 26In The Interlopers, a feud between two landowners is cut short by which larger force, the story's real victor?
Nature
Nature strikes twice, first with the falling tree and then with the ending, and Saki calls the first blow a deed of its own violence. Neither claim to the land survives it.
Q 27In The Interlopers, the enemies make peace just before it becomes useless; which literary device is that?
Irony
Irony runs through the whole story: the two reconcile after a lifetime of hatred with nobody there to witness it. Even the title turns back on the two men themselves.
Q 28In The Interlopers, Georg vows to fight on with no cursed interlopers between them; what does the word mean?
Intruders
Intruders, people who push in where they are not wanted, is the meaning. Georg uses the word again later, promising that no outsiders can meddle if the two choose peace.
Q 29In The Interlopers, where does Georg picture the whole region staring if he and Ulrich rode in together?
The market square
The market square is where Georg imagines people staring and gabbling, because no one living has seen a Znaeym and a von Gradwitz talk as friends.
Q 30In The Interlopers, why do the trapped men suffer less from the cold than the season might suggest?
Little snow has fallen
Little snow has fallen because it is what Saki calls an open winter, meaning a mild one. The wind, though, is fierce enough to bring a tree down on them.