Just think! she didn’t believe me!
“Don’t tell me such a thing as that. You unlock this door this minute!” she screamed.
Nothing I could say would make her believe that I had not the key. She kept on beating and pounding at the door and berating me for not letting her out.
“Oh, I shall suffocate in here. I certainly shall,—with my asthma!—Oh! Oh!”
It was a very small closet she was in, scarcely bigger than a wardrobe.
“Put your mouth up to that little hole in the door and I’ll run after the locksmith,” I said.
“Oh, no! Don’t go!” shrieked Mrs. Polby. “I don’t dare to stay here alone.”
What in the world should I do? There stood Mrs. Polby with her mouth close to the hole which was about as big as the bunghole in a barrel.
Sometimes her mouth disappeared while she cried, “Oh, my asthma! my asthma!”
“Karl Johan,” I shouted from the door. “Hurry! Come as fast as you can! Your mother is locked in the closet.”