Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread-and-milk on the seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and described with much detail the colouration and markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas’ basin of bread-and-milk; he had put it there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it.
At the beginning of the story, the narrator explains how Nicholas gets in trouble for putting a live frog in his bowl of bread and milk. His aunt refuses to believe him, assuming he must be talking nonsense, but Nicholas is delighted to prove her wrong and undermine her authority by revealing that there really is a frog in the bowl. The passage is significant because it establishes the ironic revelations characteristic of "The Lumber Room" while simultaneously introducing Nicholas's tendency to outsmart his aunt and cause mischief.
Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning; he felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the gooseberry garden, "only," as she remarked to herself, "because I have told him he is not to."
As an additional punishment, Nicholas's aunt decides Nicholas is not allowed to enter the gooseberry garden. In this passage, Nicholas behaves as if he is wounded by the limit to his freedom, changing his facial expression to show his displeasure. The ruse works, as his aunt immediately assumes he will try to defy her wishes, as usual. However, Nicholas is faking his upset in order to keep her distracted in the garden while he goes to the lumber room.
Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumber room might be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It came up to his expectations. In the first place it was large and dimly lit, one high window opening on to the forbidden garden being its only source of illumination. In the second place it was a storehouse of unimagined treasures. The aunt-by-assertion was one of those people who think that things spoil by use and consign them to dust and damp by way of preserving them. Such parts of the house as Nicholas knew best were rather bare and cheerless, but here there were wonderful things for the eye to feast on.
Although "The Lumber Room" contains repeated instances of ironic reversals of expectations, there is nothing ironic about the lumber room, which is everything Nicholas had imagined. Just as Nicholas had hoped, the lumber room contains the possessions his aunt keeps hidden for fear that the children will ruin them. Although he has access to the objects, Nicholas proceeds to treat everything with delicacy, replacing things where he found them and appreciating the objects in the way their makers intended.
A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Nicholas when the moment for the departure of the expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as she was scrambling in.
As the other children pull away in the carriage, Nicholas's aunt hopes Nicholas will cry in distress at having been left out of the beach trip. In an instance of situational irony, her expectations are undermined when the only person to cry is Nicholas's cousin. The reversal of fortunes prompts Nicholas to laugh, making his aunt even more cross with him and frustrated by his defiance.
Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front garden, wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other of the doors, but never able for a moment to evade the aunt’s watchful eye. As a matter of fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the gooseberry garden, but it was extremely convenient for him that his aunt should believe that he had; it was a belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry-duty for the greater part of the afternoon.
In this passage, Nicholas fools his aunt into keeping watch in the garden. By pretending that he is trying to get to one of the two doors that leads to the gooseberry garden, Nicholas is free to unlock the lumber room without his aunt in the house. The passage is significant because it speaks to Saki's characteristic use of comic irony in the story: While the aunt believes she is punishing Nicholas by not letting him into the garden, she is in fact enabling the easy execution of a plot of which she is completely unaware.
“Me,” came the answer from the other side of the wall; “didn’t you hear me? I’ve been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and I’ve slipped into the rain-water tank. Luckily there’s no water in it, but the sides are slippery and I can’t get out. Fetch the little ladder from under the cherry tree—”
“I was told I wasn’t to go into the gooseberry garden,” said Nicholas promptly.
In this dialogue between Nicholas and his aunt, Nicholas discovers that his aunt has fallen into a rain-water tank and needs a ladder to get out. Understanding his power over her, Nicholas is quick to remind her that he is forbidden from going into the gooseberry garden, where the ladder is. This passage is significant because it shows how Nicholas, despite his youth, is capable of outsmarting his aunt by using her own draconian rules against her.
As for Nicholas, he, too, was silent, in the absorption of one who has much to think about; it was just possible, he considered, that the huntsman would escape with his hounds while the wolves feasted on the stricken stag.
With these last lines, Saki ends the story with an instance of situational irony. While Nicholas's cousins, brother, and aunt are silent because they have had a miserable day, Nicholas is silent because he is content in his imagination. Thinking back to the tapestry in the lumber room, Nicholas imagines a way for the huntsman to escape the approaching wolves. With this closing thought, Saki shows how the power struggle between Nicholas and his aunt has ended in Nicholas's favor, because his punishment of having to stay inside the house was in fact a distraction that allowed him finally to gain access to the lumber room.
