Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1898 — HER LATCHKEY EXPERIENCE. [ARTICLE]

HER LATCHKEY EXPERIENCE.

Adventure That Befell Her the Fleet Time She Made Uee of It. It was her first experience with a latchkey, and it wouldn’t open the door, try as she would, says the Chicago Times-Herald. ' Presently a man passing along: the silent street hesitated, looked at her for a moment, ascended the steps. If he had spoken to her she would have screamed; as he didn’t speak, she screamed anyway. Two seconds later that obstinate door was flung violently open and the entire family, in varying stages of negligee attire, precipitated themselves upon her and the front steps. Several masculine members of the family seized the intruder, who was actively engaged in making peculiar and wordless gestures, and dragged him into the glare of the hall lamp. “What did he do to you?” “What’s the matter?” “Call the police!” and sundry kindred exclamations rent the air of the hallway and were hurled at the head of the offender, and it was some time before the unintentional cause of all the disturbance was able to make his unoffending voice heard at all. “I board next door to you,” he managed to whisper hoarsely, at last, “and I saw the young lady couldn’t open the door, so I was going to offer assistance when she screamed. And I’ve such a beastly sore throat that I couldn’t speak loud enough to make you hear when you fell upon me.” Explanations were in order promptly and forthwith, and the episode ended peacefully, but it will be many a day before the heroine of it ventures out alone at night again, and thenewboarder next door hasn’t done a single thing toward extending the acquaintance begun so inauspiciously.