Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1889 — Why She Was Shocked. [ARTICLE]

Why She Was Shocked.

The English language presents many pitfalls to the unsuspecting foreigner, but I never thought that “kiss” and “keys” were liable to be confounded. Such, however, was recently the case in this city, and a voting Secretary of Legation or attache was the victim. He prided himself upon his newly acquired knowledge of Anglo-Saxon, and especially upon his pronunciation. Becently he had occasion to change his boarding-house, and was gratified to find his new landlady young, pretty, and agreeable. U lion returning to the house after an early morning stroll, he found the chambermaid had locked the doors, and encountering the hostess alone in the hall, he surprised her with the unusual request: “Please give me kees.” Her incipient blushes were soon changed into frowns at such unwonted temerity, but when the request was repeated with great earnestness, and finally supplanted by the demand, “I must have two kees,” she fled to the dining-room and sought the protection of her husband, who was reading the morning paper. An international imbroglio -was happily averted, however, and peace restored to the distracted household by that now exasperated foreigner writing upon the margin of his host’s journal: “I ask for two keys to my rooms. What for you act like two fools ?”—Washington Capital.