Question

Read the excerpt from "The Ballad of the Ducks" by Andrew Barton. Then, answer the question that follows.

The railway rattled and roared and swung
With jolting and bumping trucks.
The sun, like a billiard red ball, hung
In the Western sky: and the tireless tongue
Of the wild-eyed man in the corner told
This terrible tale of the days of old,
And the party that ought to have kept the ducks.

Which sentence best paraphrases the stanza above?

A man sits in the corner and tells a tale while those around him play pool.
An exhausted man at a party one night is narrating a story about a train ride.
An old man is sitting in the corner with a group of ducks and tells them a story.
During a rough train ride at sunset, a talkative man begins to tell a story.

Answer 1

[AI-generated answer — Bot GPT 3.5]

During a bumpy train ride at sunset, a man in the corner tells a story about a party that failed to look after some ducks.