elate the
facts in the case. They may interest a great number of people,
particularly middle-aged gentlemen in the large cities. I know that for
me, at least, they have possessed no little attraction.

Love proverbially laughs at locksmiths, but it is safe to say that
before Simpson's Electric Latch-Key was known even that cheerful god
would not have dared to smile in the presence of some of the problems
connected with locks and keys. Now all is changed. The general use of
the latch-key mentioned has increased the gayety of nations since the
recent time in which this story is laid. Otherwise there would be no
story to tell, as this is but the plain narration of the love and
ambition which inspired, perfected, and triumphantly demonstrated the
usefulness of the invention.

The North Side in the city of Chicago may put on airs as a residence
district, and the South Side may put on airs as containing the heart of
the vast business district of Chicago, but the West Side is as big as
the two of them, and its population contains a large number of
exceedingly rich men, who, like the rich men of the other sides, are as
content with themselves for being "self-made," are just as grumpy, and
with as many weaknesses. Some of these West Side rich men live on
Ashland Avenue. There certainly lived and lives Mr. Jason B. Grampus, a
great speculator, whose home has its palatial aspects.

West Side millionaires, like those on the other sides, are not
infrequently the fathers of fair daughters. Sometimes they have only one
daughter, and no sons at all, and in such cases the daughter becomes a
very desirable acquisition for a young man of tact and enterprise. There
is no law of nature which makes a millionaire's daughter less really
lovable than other young women, and there is no law of nature which
makes a young man who may fall in love with her, even though he be poor,
a fortune-hunter and a blackguard. The young man who has a social
position without money is in a perilous way. He may fall in love with a
young woman with money, and then his motives will be impugned,
especially by the parents. It depends altogether on the young man how
he accepts the more or less anomalous position described. If he be
strong, he adapts himself in one way; if he be weak, he does it in
another.

Ned Simpson was not of the weaker sort, and he was desperately in love
with the daughter of "old man Grampus." The fact that she would
eventually be worth more