Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1879 — The Cobra at a Dinner Party. [ARTICLE]

The Cobra at a Dinner Party.

Chambers’ Journal. 1 was assisting at a burrakhaua or big dinner party, aud we had all been extremely vivacious. At last the ladies "rose to depart, when, just past the muslin skirts or a very pretty girl who had been my right hand neighbor, there glided a cobra, which forthwith made for the open window behind us, but was attacked and killed before it could escape. The young lady, not unnaturally, got rather hysterical, but she soon came around, and then told us what, considering all the circumstances, there was not the slightest reason to disbelieve, that during the progress of the dinner her foot had on several occasions touched a soft object, which once or twice moved slightly, but which she concluded to be a pet dog, belonging to the master of the house, which she knew was perfectly quiet and good tempered. The dog, however, had not been in the rtxim at all, and the object she had touched had undoubtedly been the coiled up snake, whose bite would have been fatal to the poor girl, who little guessed the awful danger she had so narrowly escaped. * '