The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Elevator, by William D. Howells


This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org





Title: The Elevator


Author: William D. Howells



Release Date: June 29, 2014  [eBook #3401]
[This file was first posted 4 March 2001]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ELEVATOR***

Transcribed from “The Sleeping Car and Other Farces” 1911 Houghton Mifflin Company edition by David Price, email [email protected]

p. 161THE ELEVATOR.
Farce.

I.

Scene: Through the curtained doorway of Mrs. Edward Roberts’s pretty drawing-room, in Hotel Bellingham, shows the snowy and gleaming array of a table set for dinner, under the dim light of gas-burners turned low.  An air of expectancy pervades the place, and the uneasiness of Mr. Roberts, in evening dress, expresses something more as he turns from a glance into the dining-room, and still holding the portière with one hand, takes out his watch with the other.

Mr. Roberts to Mrs. Roberts entering the drawing-room from regions beyond: “My dear, it’s six o’clock.  What can have become of your aunt?”

Mrs. Roberts, with a little anxiety: “That was just what I was going to ask.  She’s never late; and the children are quite heart-broken.  They p. 162had counted upon seeing her, and talking Christmas a little before they were put to bed.”

Roberts: “Very singular her not coming!  Is she going to begin standing upon ceremony with us, and not come till the hour?”

Mrs. Roberts: “Nonsense, Edward!  She’s been detained.  Of course she’ll be here in a moment.  How impatient you are!”

Roberts: “You must profit by me as an awful example.”

Mrs. Roberts, going about the room, and bestowing little touches here and there on its ornaments: “If you’d had that new cook to battle with over this dinner, you’d have learned patience by this time without any awful example.”

Roberts, dropping nervously into the nearest chair: “I hope she isn’t behind time.”

Mrs. Roberts, drifting upon the sofa, and disposing her train effectively on the carpet around her: “She’s before time.  The dinner is in the last moment of ripe perfection now, when we must still give people fifteen minutes’ grace.”  She studies the convolutions of her train absent-mindedly.

Roberts, joining in its perusal: “Is that the way p. 163you’ve arranged to be sitting when people come in?”

Mrs. Roberts: “Of course not.  I shall get up to receive them.”

Roberts: “That’s rather a pity.  To destroy such a lovely pose.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Do you like it?”

Roberts: “It’s divine.”

Mrs. Roberts: “You might throw me a kiss.”

Roberts: “No; if it happened to strike on that train anywhere, it might spoil one of the folds.  I can’t risk it.”  A ring is heard at the apartment door.  They spring to their feet simultaneously.

Mrs. Roberts: “There’s Aunt Mary now!”  She calls into the vestibule, “Aunt Mary!”

Dr. Lawton, putting aside the vestibule portière, with affected timidity: “Very sorry.  Merely a father.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh!  Dr. Lawton?  I am so glad to see you!”  She gives him her hand: “I thought it was my aunt.  We can’t understand why she hasn’t come.  Why! where’s Miss Lawton?”

Lawton: “That is precisely what I was going to ask you.”

p. 164Mrs. Roberts: “Why, she isn’t here.”

Lawton: “So it seems.  I left her with the carriage at the door when I started to walk here.  She called after me down the stairs that she would be ready in three seconds, and begged me to hurry, so that we could come in together, and not let people know I’d saved half a dollar by walking.”

Mrs. Roberts: “She’s been detained too!”

Roberts, coming forward: “Now you know what it is to have a delinquent Aunt-Mary-in-law.”

Lawton, shaking hands with him: “O Roberts!  Is that you?  It’s astonishing how little one makes of the husband of a lady who gives a dinner.  In my time—a long time ago—he used to carve.  But nowadays, when everything is served à la Russe, he might as well be abolished.  Don’t you think, on the whole, Roberts, you’d better not have come?”

Roberts: “Well, you see, I had no excuse.  I hated to say an engagement when I hadn’t any.”

Lawton: “Oh, I understand.  You wanted to come.  We all do, when Mrs. Roberts will let us.”  He goes and sits down by Mrs. Roberts, who has taken a more provisional pose on the sofa.  p. 165“Mrs. Roberts, you’re the only woman in Boston who could hope to get people, with a fireside of their own—or a register—out to a Christmas dinner.  You know I still wonder at your effrontery a little?”

Mrs. Roberts, laughing: “I knew I should catch you if I baited my hook with your old friend.”

Lawton: “Yes, nothing would have kept me away when I heard Bemis was coming.  But he doesn’t seem so inflexible in regard to me.  Where is he?”

Mrs. Roberts: “I’m sure I don’t know.  I’d no idea I was giving such a formal dinner.  But everybody, beginning with my own aunt, seems to think it a ceremonious occasion.  There are only to be twelve.  Do you know the Millers?”

Lawton: “No, thank goodness!  One meets some people so often that one fancies one’s weariness of them reflected in their sympathetic countenances.  Who are these acceptably novel Millers?”

Mrs. Roberts: “Do explain the Millers to the doctor, Edward.”

Roberts, standing on the hearth-rug, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets: “They board.”

Lawton: “Genus.  That accounts for their willingness p. 166to flutter round your evening lamp when they ought to be singeing their wings at their own.  Well, species?”

Roberts: “They’re very nice young newly married people.  He’s something or other of some kind of manufactures.  And Mrs. Miller is disposed to think that all the other ladies are as fond of him as she is.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh!  That is not so, Edward.”

Lawton: “You defend your sex, as women always do.  But you’ll admit that, as your friend, Mrs. Miller may have this foible.”

Mrs. Roberts: “I admit nothing of the kind.  And we’ve invited another young couple who haven’t gone to housekeeping yet—the Curwens.  And he has the same foible as Mrs. Miller.”  Mrs. Roberts takes out her handkerchief, and laughs into it.

Lawton: “That is, if Mrs. Miller has it, which we both deny.  Let us hope that Mrs. Miller and Mr. Curwen may not get to making eyes at each other.”

Roberts: “And Mr. Bemis and his son complete the list.  Why, Agnes, there are only ten.  You said there were twelve.”

p. 167Mrs. Roberts: “Well, never mind.  I meant ten.  I forgot that the Somerses declined.”  A ring is heard.  “Ah! that’s Aunt Mary.”  She runs into the vestibule, and is heard exclaiming without: “Why, Mrs. Miller, is it you?  I thought it was my aunt.  Where is Mr. Miller?”

Mrs. Miller, entering the drawing-room arm in arm with her hostess: “Oh, he’ll be here directly.  I had to let him run back for my fan.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Well, we’re very glad to have you to begin with.  Let me introduce Dr. Lawton.”

Mrs. Miller, in a polite murmur: “Dr. Lawton.”  In a louder tone: “O Mr. Roberts!”

Lawton: “You see, Roberts?  The same aggrieved surprise at meeting you here that I felt.”

Mrs. Miller: “What in the world do you mean?”

Lawton: “Don’t you think that when a husband is present at his wife’s dinner party he repeats the mortifying superfluity of a bridegroom at a wedding?”

Mrs. Miller: “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.  I should never think of giving a dinner without Mr. Miller.”

p. 168Lawton: “No?”  A ring is heard.  “There’s Bemis.”

Mrs. Miller: “It’s Mr. Miller.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Aunt Mary at last!”  As she bustles toward the door: “Edward, there are twelve—Aunt Mary and Willis.”

Roberts: “Oh, yes.  I totally forgot Willis.”

Lawton: “Who’s Willis?”

Roberts: “Willis?  Oh, Willis is my wife’s brother.  We always have him.”

Lawton: “Oh, yes, Campbell.”

Mrs. Roberts, without: “Mr. Bemis!  So kind of you to come on Christmas.”

Mr. Bemis, without: “So kind of you to ask us houseless strangers.”

Mrs. Roberts, without: “I ran out here, thinking it was my aunt.  She’s played us a trick, and hasn’t come yet.”

Bemis, entering the drawing-room with Mrs. Roberts: “I hope she won’t fail altogether.  I haven’t met her for twenty years, and I counted so much upon the pleasure—Hello, Lawton!”

Lawton: “Hullo, old fellow!”  They fly at each other, and shake hands.  “Glad to see you again.”

p. 169Bemis, reaching his left hand to Mr. Roberts, while Mr. Lawton keeps his right: “Ah!  Mr. Roberts.”

Lawton: “Oh, never mind him.  He’s merely the husband of the hostess.”

Mrs. Miller, to Roberts: “What does he mean?”

Roberts: “Oh, nothing.  Merely a joke he’s experimenting with.”

Lawton to Bemis: “Where’s your boy?”

Bemis: “He’ll be here directly.  He preferred to walk.  Where’s your girl?”

Lawton: “Oh, she’ll come by and by.  She preferred to drive.”

Mrs. Roberts, introducing them: “Mr. Bemis, have you met Mrs. Miller?”  She drifts away again, manifestly too uneasy to resume even a provisional pose on the sofa, and walks detachedly about the room.

Bemis: “What a lovely apartment Mrs. Roberts has.”

Mrs. Miller: “Exquisite!  But then she has such perfect taste.”

Bemis, to Mrs. Roberts, who drifts near them: “We were talking about your apartment, Mrs. Roberts.  It’s charming.”

p. 170Mrs. Roberts: “It is nice.  It’s the ideal way of living.  All on one floor.  No stairs.  Nothing.”

Bemis: “Yes, when once you get here!  But that little matter of five pair up”—

Mrs. Roberts: “You don’t mean to say you walked up!  Why in the world didn’t you take the elevator?”

Bemis: “I didn’t know you had one.”

Mrs. Roberts: “It’s the only thing that makes life worth living in a flat.  All these apartment hotels have them.”

Bemis: “Bless me!  Well, you see, I’ve been away from Boston so long, and am back so short a time, that I can’t realize your luxuries and conveniences.  In Florence we always walk up.  They have ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense signs on the sides of the building.”

Lawton: “What pastoral simplicity!  We are elevated here to a degree that you can’t conceive of, gentle shepherd.  Has yours got an air-cushion, Mrs. Roberts?”

Mrs. Roberts: “An air-cushion?  What’s that?”

Lawton: “The only thing that makes your life worth a moment’s purchase in an elevator.  You p. 171get in with a glass of water, a basket of eggs, and a file of the ‘Daily Advertiser.’  They cut the elevator loose at the top, and you drop.”

Both Ladies: “Oh!”

Lawton: “In three seconds you arrive at the ground-floor, reading your file of the ‘Daily Advertiser;’ not an egg broken nor a drop spilled.  I saw it done in a New York hotel.  The air is compressed under the elevator, and acts as a sort of ethereal buffer.”

Mrs. Roberts: “And why don’t we always go down in that way?”

Lawton: “Because sometimes the walls of the elevator shaft give out.”

Mrs. Roberts: “And what then?”

Lawton: “Then the elevator stops more abruptly.  I had a friend who tried it when this happened.”

Mrs. Roberts: “And what did he do?”

Lawton: “Stepped out of the elevator; laughed; cried; went home; got into bed: and did not get up for six weeks.  Nervous shock.  He was fortunate.”

Mrs. Miller: “I shouldn’t think you’d want an air-cushion on your elevator, Mrs. Roberts.”

Mrs. Roberts: “No, indeed!  Horrid!”  The p. 172bell rings.  “Edward, you go and see if that’s Aunt Mary.”

Mrs. Miller: “It’s Mr. Miller, I know.”

Bemis: “Or my son.”

Lawton: “My voice is for Mrs. Roberts’s brother.  I’ve given up all hopes of my daughter.”

Roberts, without: “Oh, Curwen!  Glad to see you!  Thought you were my wife’s aunt.”

Lawton, at a suppressed sigh from Mrs. Roberts: “It’s one of his jokes, Mrs. Roberts.  Of course it’s your aunt.”

Mrs. Roberts, through her set teeth, smilingly: “Oh, if it is, I’ll make him suffer for it.”

Mr. Curwen, without: “No, I hated to wait, so I walked up.”

Lawton: “It is Mr. Curwen, after all, Mrs. Roberts.  Now let me see how a lady transmutes a frown of threatened vengeance into a smile of society welcome.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Well, look!”  To Mr. Curwen, who enters, followed by her husband: “Ah, Mr. Curwen!  So glad to see you.  You know all our friends here—Mrs. Miller, Dr. Lawton, and Mr. Bemis?”

Curwen, smiling and bowing, and shaking hands p. 173right and left: “Very glad—very happy—pleased to know you.”

Mrs. Roberts, behind her fan to Dr. Lawton: “Didn’t I do it beautifully?”

Lawton, behind his hand: “Wonderfully!  And so unconscious of the fact that he hasn’t his wife with him.”

Mrs. Roberts, in great astonishment, to Mr. Curwen: “Where in the world is Mrs. Curwen?”

Curwen: “Oh—oh—she’ll be here.  I thought she was here.  She started from home with two right-hand gloves, and I had to go back for a left, and I—I suppose—Good heavens!” pulling the glove out of his pocket.  “I ought to have sent it to her in the ladies’ dressing-room.”  He remains with the glove held up before him, in spectacular stupefaction.

Lawton: “Only imagine what Mrs. Curwen would be saying of you if she were in the dressing-room.”

Roberts: “Mr. Curwen felt so sure she was there that he wouldn’t wait to take the elevator, and walked up.”  Another ring is heard.  “Shall I go and meet your aunt now, my dear?”

Mrs. Roberts: “No, indeed!  She may come in p. 174now with all the formality she chooses, and I will receive her excuses in state.”  She waves her fan softly to and fro, concealing a murmur of trepidation under an indignant air, till the portière opens, and Mr. Willis Campbell enters.  Then Mrs. Roberts breaks in nervous agitation “Why, Willis!  Where’s Aunt Mary?”

Mrs. Miller: “And Mr. Miller?”

Curwen: “And Mrs. Curwen?”

Lawton: “And my daughter?”

Bemis: “And my son?”

Mr. Campbell, looking tranquilly round on the faces of his interrogators: “Is it a conundrum?”

Mrs. Roberts, mingling a real distress with an effort of mock-heroic solemnity: “It is a tragedy!  O Willis dear! it’s what you see—what you hear; a niece without an aunt, a wife without a husband, a father without a son, and another father without a daughter.”

Roberts: “And a dinner getting cold, and a cook getting hot.”

Lawton: “And you are expected to account for the whole situation.”

Campbell: “Oh, I understand!  I don’t know what your little game is, Agnes, but I can wait and see.  I’m not hungry.”

p. 175Mrs. Roberts: “Willis, do you think I would try and play a trick on you, if I could?”

Campbell: “I think you can’t.  Come, now, Agnes!  It’s a failure.  Own up, and bring the rest of the company out of the next room.  I suppose almost anything is allowable at this festive season, but this is pretty feeble.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Indeed, indeed, they are not there.”

Campbell: “Where are they, then?”

All: “That’s what we don’t know.”

Campbell: “Oh, come, now! that’s a little too thin.  You don’t know where any of all these blood-relations and connections by marriage are?  Well, search me!”

Mrs. Roberts, in open distress: “Oh, I’m sure something must have happened to Aunt Mary!”

Mrs. Miller: “I can’t understand what Ellery C. Miller means.”

Lawton, with a simulated sternness: “I hope you haven’t let that son of yours run away with my daughter, Bemis?”

Bemis: “I’m afraid he’s come to a pass where he wouldn’t ask my leave.”

Curwen, re-assuring himself: “Ah, she’s all right, of course.  I know that”—

p. 176Bemis: “Miss Lawton?”

Curwen: “No, no—Mrs. Curwen.”

Campbell: “Is it a true bill, Agnes?”

Mrs. Roberts: “Indeed it is, Willis.  We’ve been expecting her for an hour—of course she always comes early—and I’m afraid she’s been taken ill suddenly.”

Roberts: “Oh, I don’t think it’s that, my dear.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, of course you never think anything’s wrong, Edward.  My whole family might die, and”—Mrs. Roberts restrains herself, and turns to Mr. Campbell, with hysterical cheerfulness: “Who came up in the elevator with you?”

Campbell: “Me?  I didn’t come in the elevator.  I had my usual luck.  The elevator was up somewhere, and after I’d pressed the annunciator button till my thumb ached, I watched my chance and walked up.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Where was the janitor?”

Campbell: “Where the janitor always is—nowhere.”

Lawton: “Eating his Christmas dinner, probably.”

Mrs. Roberts, partially abandoning and then recovering herself: “Yes, it’s perfectly spoiled!  p. 177Well, friends, I think we’d better go to dinner—that’s the only way to bring them.  I’ll go out and interview the cook.”  Sotto voce to her husband: “If I don’t go somewhere and have a cry, I shall break down here before everybody.  Did you ever know anything so strange?  It’s perfectly—pokerish.”

Lawton: “Yes, there’s nothing like serving dinner to bring the belated guest.  It’s as infallible as going without an umbrella when it won’t rain.”

Campbell: “No, no!  Wait a minute, Roberts.  You might sit down without one guest, but you can’t sit down without five.  It’s the old joke about the part of Hamlet.  I’ll just step round to Aunt Mary’s house—why, I’ll be back in three minutes.”

Mrs. Roberts, with perfervid gratitude: “Oh, how good you are, Willis!  You don’t know how much you’re doing!  What presence of mind you have!  Why couldn’t we have thought of sending for her?  O Willis, I can never be grateful enough to you!  But you always think of everything.”

Roberts: “I accept my punishment meekly, Willis, since it’s in your honor.”

Lawton: “It’s a simple and beautiful solution, p. 178Mrs. Roberts, as far as your aunt’s concerned; but I don’t see how it helps the rest of us.”

Mrs. Miller to Mr. Campbell: “If you meet Mr. Miller ”—

Curwen: “Or my wife”—

Bemis: “Or my son”—

Lawton: “Or my daughter”—

Campbell: “I’ll tell them they’ve just one chance in a hundred to save their lives, and that one is open to them for just five minutes.”

Lawton: “Tell my daughter that I’ve been here half an hour, and everybody knows I drove here with her.”

Bemis: “Tell my son that the next time I’ll walk, and let him drive.”

Mrs. Miller: “Tell Mr. Miller I found I had my fan after all.”

Curwen: “And Mrs. Curwen that I’ve got her glove all right.”  He holds it up.

Mrs. Roberts, at a look of mystification and demand from her brother: “Never mind explanations, Willis.  They’ll understand, and we’ll explain when you get back.”

Lawton, examining the glove which Curwen holds up: “Why, so it is right!”

p. 179Curwen: “What do you mean?”

Lawton: “Were you sent back to get a left glove?”

Curwen: “Yes, yes; of course.”

Lawton: “Well, if you’ll notice, this is a right one.  The one at home is left.”

Curwen, staring helplessly at it: “Gracious Powers! what shall I do?”

Lawton: “Pray that Mrs. Curwen may never come.”

Mr. Curwen, dashing through the door: “I’ll be back by the time Mr. Campbell returns.”

Mrs. Miller, with tokens of breaking down visible to Mrs. Roberts: “I wonder what could have kept Mr. Miller.  It’s so very mysterious, I”—

Mrs. Roberts, suddenly seizing her by the arm, and hurrying her from the room: “Now, Mrs. Miller, you’ve just got time to see my baby.”

Mr. Roberts, winking at his remaining guests: “A little cry will do them good.  I saw as soon as Willis came in instead of her aunt, that my wife couldn’t get through without it.  They’ll come back as bright as”—

Lawton: “Bemis, should you mind a bereaved father falling upon your neck?”

p. 180Bemis: “Yes, Lawton, I think I should.”

Lawton: “Well, it is rather odd about all those people.  You can say of one or two that they’ve been delayed, but five people can’t have been delayed.  It’s too much.  It amounts to a coincidence.  Hello!  What’s that?”

Roberts: “What’s what?”

Lawton: “I thought I heard a cry.”

Roberts: “Very likely you did.  They profess to deaden these floors so that you can’t hear from one apartment to another.  But I know pretty well when my neighbor overhead is trying to wheel his baby to sleep in a perambulator at three o’clock in the morning; and I guess our young lady lets the people below understand when she’s wakeful.  But it’s the only way to live, after all.  I wouldn’t go back to the old up-and-down-stairs, house-in-a-block system on any account.  Here we all live on the ground-floor practically.  The elevator equalizes everything.”

Bemis: “Yes, when it happens to be where you are.  I believe I prefer the good old Florentine fashion of walking upstairs, after all.”

Lawton: “Roberts, I did hear something.  Hark!  It sounded like a cry for help.  There!”

p. 181Roberts: “You’re nervous, doctor.  It’s nothing.  However, it’s easy enough to go out and see.”  He goes out to the door of the apartment, and immediately returns.  He beckons to Dr. Lawton and Mr. Bemis, with a mysterious whisper: “Come here both of you.  Don’t alarm the ladies.”

p. 182II.

In the interior of the elevator are seated Mrs. Roberts’s Aunt Mary (Mrs. Crashaw), Mrs. Curwen, and Miss Lawton; Mr. Miller and Mr. Alfred Bemis are standing with their hats in their hands.  They are in dinner costume, with their overcoats on their arms, and the ladies’ draperies and ribbons show from under their outer wraps, where they are caught up, and held with that caution which characterizes ladies in sitting attitudes which they have not been able to choose deliberately.  As they talk together, the elevator rises very slowly, and they continue talking for some time before they observe that it has stopped.

Mrs. Crashaw: “It’s very fortunate that we are all here together.  I ought to have been here half an hour ago, but I was kept at home by an accident to my finery, and before I could be put in repair I heard it striking the quarter past.  I p. 183don’t know what my niece will say to me.  I hope you good people will all stand by me if she should be violent.”

Miller: “In what a poor man may with his wife’s fan, you shall command me, Mrs. Crashaw.”  He takes the fan out, and unfurls it.

Mrs. Crashaw: “Did she send you back for it?”

Miller: “I shouldn’t have had the pleasure of arriving with you if she hadn’t.”

Mrs. Crashaw, laughing, to Mrs. Curwen: “What did you send yours back for, my dear?”

Mrs. Curwen, thrusting out one hand gloved, and the other ungloved: “I didn’t want two rights.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Not even women’s rights?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Oh, so young and so depraved!  Are all the young men in Florence so bad?”  Surveying her extended arms, which she turns over: “I don’t know that I need have sent him for the other glove.  I could have explained to Mrs. Roberts.  Perhaps she would have forgiven my coming in one glove.”

Miller, looking down at the pretty arms: “If she had seen you without.”

p. 184Mrs. Curwen: “Oh, you were looking!”  She rapidly involves her arms in her wrap.  Then she suddenly unwraps them, and regards them thoughtfully.  “What if he should bring a ten-button instead of an eight!  And he’s quite capable of doing it.”

Miller: “Are there such things as ten-button gloves?”

Mrs. Curwen: “You would think there were ten-thousand button gloves if you had them to button.”

Miller: “It would depend upon whom I had to button them for.”

Mrs. Curwen: “For Mrs. Miller, for example.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “We women are too bad, always sending people back for something.  It’s well the men don’t know how bad.”

Mrs. Curwen: “’Sh!  Mr. Miller is listening.  And he thought we were perfect.  He asks nothing better than to be sent back for his wife’s fan.  And he doesn’t say anything even under his breath when she finds she’s forgotten it, and begins, ‘Oh, dearest, my fan’—Mr. Curwen does.  But he goes all the same.  I hope you have your father in good training, Miss Lawton.  You must p. 185commence with your father, if you expect your husband to be ‘good.’”

Miss Lawton: “Then mine will never behave, for papa is perfectly incorrigible.”

Mrs. Curwen: “I’m sorry to hear such a bad report of him.  Shouldn’t you think he would be ‘good,’ Mr. Bemis?”

Young Mr. Bemis: “I should think he would try.”

Mrs. Curwen: “A diplomat, as well as a punster already!  I must warn Miss Lawton.”

Mrs. Crashaw, interposing to spare the young people: “What an amusing thing elevator etiquette is!  Why should the gentlemen take their hats off?  Why don’t you take your hats off in a horse-car?”

Miller: “The theory is that the elevator is a room.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “We were at a hotel in London where they called it the Ascending Room.”

Miss Lawton: “Oh, how amusing!”

Miller, looking about: “This is a regular drawing-room for size and luxury.  They’re usually such cribs in these hotels.”

p. 186Mrs. Crashaw: “Yes, it’s very nice, though I say it that shouldn’t of my niece’s elevator.  The worst about it is, it’s so slow.”

Miller: “Let’s hope it’s sure.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Some of these elevators in America go up like express trains.”

Mrs. Curwen, drawing her shawl about her shoulders, as if to be ready to step out: “Well, I never get into one without taking my life in my hand, and my heart in my mouth.  I suppose every one really expects an elevator to drop with them, some day, just as everybody really expects to see a ghost some time.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Oh, my dear! what an extremely disagreeable subject of conversation.”

Mrs. Curwen: “I can’t help it, Mrs. Crashaw.  When I reflect that there are two thousand elevators in Boston, and that the inspectors have just pronounced a hundred and seventy of them unsafe, I’m so desperate when I get into one that I could—flirt!”

Miller, guarding himself with the fan: “Not with me?”

Miss Lawton, to young Mr. Bemis: “How it does creep!”

p. 187Young Mr. Bemis, looking down fondly at her: “Oh, does it?”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Why, it doesn’t go at all!  It’s stopped.  Let us get out.”  They all rise.

The Elevator Boy, pulling at the rope: “We’re not there, yet.”

Mrs. Crashaw, with mingled trepidation and severity: “Not there?  What are you stopping, then, for?”

The Elevator Boy: “I don’t know.  It seems to be caught.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Caught?”

Miss Lawton: “Oh, dear!”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Don’t mind.”

Miller: “Caught?  Nonsense!”

Mrs. Curwen: “We’re caught, I should say.”  She sinks back on the seat.

The Elevator Boy: “Seemed to be going kind of funny all day!”  He keeps tugging at the rope.

Miller, arresting the boy’s efforts: “Well, hold on—stop!  What are you doing?”

The Elevator Boy: “Trying to make it go.”

p. 188Miller: “Well, don’t be so—violent about it.  You might break something.”

The Elevator Boy: “Break a wire rope like that!”

Miller: “Well, well, be quiet now.  Ladies, I think you’d better sit down—and as gently as possible.  I wouldn’t move about much.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Move!  We’re stone.  And I wish for my part I were a feather.”

Miller, to the boy: “Er—a—er—where do you suppose we are?”

The Elevator Boy: “We’re in the shaft between the fourth and fifth floors.”  He attempts a fresh demonstration on the rope, but is prevented.

Miller: “Hold on!  Er—er”—

Mrs. Crashaw, as if the boy had to be communicated with through an interpreter: “Ask him if it’s ever happened before.”

Miller: “Yes.  Were you ever caught before?”

The Elevator Boy: “No.”

Miller: “He says no.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Ask him if the elevator has a safety device.”

Miller: “Has it got a safety device?”

The Elevator Boy: “How should I know?”

Miller: “He says he don’t know.”

Mrs. Curwen, in a shriek of hysterical laughter: “Why, he understands English!”

Mrs. Crashaw, sternly ignoring the insinuation: p. 189“Ask him if there’s any means of calling the janitor.”

Miller: “Could you call the janitor?”

The Elevator Boy, ironically: “Well, there ain’t any telephone attachment.”

Miller, solemnly: “No, he says there isn’t.”

Mrs. Crashaw, sinking back on the seat with resignation: “Well, I don’t know what my niece will say.”

Miss Lawton: “Poor papa!”

Young Mr. Bemis, gathering one of her wandering hands into his: “Don’t be frightened.  I’m sure there’s no danger.”

The Elevator Boy, indignantly: “Why, she can’t drop.  The cogs in the runs won’t let her!”

All: “Oh!”

Miller, with a sigh of relief: “I knew there must be something of the kind.  Well, I wish my wife had her fan.”

Mrs. Curwen: “And if I had my left glove I should be perfectly happy.  Not that I know what the cogs in the runs are!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Then we’re merely caught here?”

Miller: “That’s all.”

p. 190Mrs. Curwen: “It’s quite enough for the purpose.  Couldn’t you put on a life-preserver, Mr. Miller, and go ashore and get help from the natives?”

Miss Lawton, putting her handkerchief to her eyes: “Oh, dear!”

Mrs. Crashaw, putting her arm around her: “Don’t be frightened, my child.  There’s no danger.”

Young Mr. Bemis, caressing the hand which he holds: “Don’t be frightened.”

Miss Lawton: “Don’t leave me.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “No, no; I won’t.  Keep fast hold of my hand.”

Miss Lawton: “Oh, yes, I will!  I’m ashamed to cry.”

Young Mr. Bemis, fervently: “Oh, you needn’t be!  It is perfectly natural you should.”

Mrs. Curwen: “I’m too badly scared for tears.  Mr. Miller, you seem to be in charge of this expedition—couldn’t you do something?  Throw out ballast, or let the boy down in a parachute?  Or I’ve read of a shipwreck where the survivors, in an open boat, joined in a cry, and attracted the notice of a vessel that was going to pass them.  We might join in a cry.”

p. 191Miller: “Oh, it’s all very well joking, Mrs. Curwen”—

Mrs. Curwen: “You call it joking!”

Miller: “But it’s not so amusing, being cooped up here indefinitely.  I don’t know how we’re to get out.  We can’t join in a cry, and rouse the whole house.  It would be ridiculous.”

Mrs. Curwen: “And our present attitude is so eminently dignified!  Well, I suppose we shall have to cast lots pretty soon to see which of us shall be sacrificed to nourish the survivors.  It’s long past dinner-time.”

Miss Lawton, breaking down: “Oh, don’t say such terrible things.”

Young Mr. Bemis, indignantly comforting her: “Don’t, don’t cry.  There’s no danger.  It’s perfectly safe.”

Miller to The Elevator Boy: “Couldn’t you climb up the cable, and get on to the landing, and—ah!—get somebody?”

The Elevator Boy: “I could, maybe, if there was a hole in the roof.”

Miller, glancing up: “Ah! true.”

Mrs. Crashaw, with an old lady’s serious kindness: “My boy, can’t you think of anything to do for us?”

p. 192The Elevator Boy yielding to the touch of humanity, and bursting into tears: “No, ma’am, I can’t.  And everybody’s blamin’ me, as if I done it.  What’s my poor mother goin’ to do?”

Mrs. Crashaw, soothingly: “But you said the runs in the cogs”—

The Elevator Boy: “How can I tell!  That’s what they say.  They hain’t never been tried.”

Mrs. Curwen, springing to her feet: “There!  I knew I should.  Oh”—She sinks fainting to the floor.

Mrs. Crashaw, abandoning Miss Lawton to the ministrations of young Mr. Bemis, while she kneels beside Mrs. Curwen and chafes her hand: “Oh, poor thing!  I knew she was overwrought by the way she was keeping up.  Give her air, Mr. Miller.  Open a—Oh, there isn’t any window!”

Miller, dropping on his knees, and fanning Mrs. Curwen: “There! there!  Wake up, Mrs. Curwen.  I didn’t mean to scold you for joking.  I didn’t, indeed.  I—I—I don’t know what the deuce I’m up to.”  He gathers Mrs. Curwen’s inanimate form in his arms, and fans her face where it lies on his shoulder. “I don’t know what my wife would say if”—

p. 193Mrs. Crashaw: “She would say that you were doing your duty.”

Miller, a little consoled: “Oh, do you think so?  Well, perhaps.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Do you feel faint at all, Miss Lawton?”

Miss Lawton: “No, I think not.  No, not if you say it’s safe.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Oh, I’m sure it is!”

Miss Lawton, renewing her hold upon his hand: “Well, then!  Perhaps I hurt you?”

Young Mr. Bemis: “No, no!  You couldn’t.”

Miss Lawton: “How kind you are!”

Mrs. Curwen, opening her eyes: “Where”—

Miller, rapidly transferring her to Mrs. Crashaw: “Still in the elevator, Mrs. Curwen.”  Rising to his feet: “Something must be done.  Perhaps we had better unite in a cry.  It’s ridiculous, of course.  But it’s the only thing we can do.  Now, then!  Hello!”

Miss Lawton: “Papa!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Agne-e-e-s!”

Mrs. Curwen, faintly: “Walter!”

The Elevator Boy: “Say!”

Miller: “Oh, that won’t do.  All join in ‘Hello!’”

p. 194All: “Hello!”

Miller: “Once more!”

All: “Hello!”

Miller: “Once more!”

All: “Hello!”

Miller: “Now wait a while.”  After an interval: “No, nobody coming.”  He takes out his watch.  “We must repeat this cry at intervals of a half-minute.  Now, then!”  They all join in the cry, repeating it as Mr. Miller makes the signal with his lifted hand.

Miss Lawton: “Oh, it’s no use!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “They don’t hear.”

Mrs. Curwen: “They won’t hear.”

Miller: “Now, then, three times!”

All: “Hello! hello! hello!”

p. 195III.

Roberts appears at the outer door of his apartment on the fifth floor.  It opens upon a spacious landing, to which a wide staircase ascends at one side.  At the other is seen the grated door to the shaft of the elevator.  He peers about on all sides, and listens for a moment before he speaks.

Roberts: “Hello yourself.”

Miller, invisibly from the shaft: “Is that you, Roberts?”

Roberts: “Yes; where in the world are you?”

Miller: “In the elevator.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “We’re all here, Edward.”

Roberts: “What!  You, Aunt Mary!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Yes.  Didn’t I say so?”

Roberts: “Why don’t you come up?”

Miller: “We can’t.  The elevator has got stuck somehow.”

p. 196Roberts: “Got stuck?  Bless my soul!  How did it happen?  How long have you been there?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Since the world began!”

Miller: “What’s the use asking how it happened?  We don’t know, and we don’t care.  What we want to do is to get out.”

Roberts: “Yes, yes!  Be careful!”  He rises from his frog-like posture at the grating, and walks the landing in agitation.  “Just hold on a minute!”

Miller: “Oh, we sha’n’t stir.”

Roberts: “I’ll see what can be done.”

Miller: “Well, see quick, please.  We have plenty of time, but we don’t want to lose any.  Don’t alarm Mrs. Miller, if you can help it.”

Roberts: “No, no.”

Mrs. Curwen: “You may alarm Mr. Curwen.”

Roberts: “What!  Are you there?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Here?  I’ve been here all my life!”

Roberts: “Ha! ha! ha!  That’s right.  We’ll soon have you out.  Keep up your spirits.”

Mrs. Curwen: “But I’m not keeping them up.”

Miss Lawton: “Tell papa I’m here too.”

Roberts: “What!  You too, Miss Lawton?”

p. 197Mrs. Crashaw: “Yes, and young Mr. Bemis.  Didn’t I tell you we were all here?”

Roberts: “I couldn’t realize it.  Well, wait a moment.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Oh, you can trust us to wait.”

Roberts, returning with Dr. Lawton, and Mr. Bemis, who join him in stooping around the grated door of the shaft: “They’re just under here in the well of the elevator, midway between the two stories.”

Lawton: “Ha! ha! ha!  You don’t say so.”

Bemis: “Bless my heart!  What are they doing there?”

Miller: “We’re not doing anything.”

Mrs. Curwen: “We’re waiting for you to do something.”

Miss Lawton: “Oh, papa!”

Lawton: “Don’t be troubled, Lou, we’ll soon have you out.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Don’t be alarmed, sir, Miss Lawton is all right.”

Miss Lawton: “Yes, I’m not frightened, papa.”

Lawton: “Well, that’s a great thing in cases of this kind.  How did you happen to get there?”

Miller, indignantly: “How do you suppose?  We came up in the elevator.”

p. 198Lawton: “Well, why didn’t you come the rest of the way?”

Miller: “The elevator wouldn’t.”

Lawton: “What seems to be the matter?”

Miller: “We don’t know.”

Lawton: “Have you tried to start it?”

Miller: “Well, I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

Lawton: “Well, be careful what you do.  You might”—

Miller, interrupting: “Roberts, who’s that talking?”

Roberts, coming forward politely: “Oh, excuse me!  I forgot that you didn’t know each other.  Dr. Lawton, Mr. Miller.”  Introducing them.

Lawton: “Glad to know you.”

Miller: “Very happy to make your acquaintance, and hope some day to see you.  And now, if you have completed your diagnosis”—

Mrs. Curwen: “None of us have ever had it before, doctor; nor any of our families, so far as we know.”

Lawton: “Ha! ha! ha!  Very good!  Well, just keep quiet.  We’ll have you all out of there presently.”

p. 199Bemis: “Yes, remain perfectly still.”

Roberts: “Yes, we’ll have you out.  Just wait.”

Miller: “You seem to think we’re going to run away.  Why shouldn’t we keep quiet?  Do you suppose we’re going to be very boisterous, shut up here like rats in a trap?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Or birds in a cage, if you want a more pleasing image.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “How are you going to get us out, Edward?”

Roberts: “We don’t know yet.  But keep quiet”—

Miller: “Keep quiet!  Great heavens! we’re afraid to stir a finger.  Now don’t say ‘keep quiet’ any more, for we can’t stand it.”

Lawton: “He’s in open rebellion.  What are you going to do, Roberts?”

Roberts, rising and scratching his head: “Well, I don’t know yet.  We might break a hole in the roof.”

Lawton: “Ah, I don’t think that would do.  Besides you’d have to get a carpenter.”

Roberts: “That’s true.  And it would make a racket, and alarm the house”—staring desperately at the grated doorway of the shaft.  “If I p. 200could only find an elevator man—an elevator builder!  But of course they all live in the suburbs, and they’re keeping Christmas, and it would take too long, anyway.”

Bemis: “Hadn’t you better send for the police?  It seems to me it’s a case for the authorities.”

Lawton: “Ah, there speaks the Europeanized mind!  They always leave the initiative to the authorities.  Go out and sound the fire-alarm, Roberts.  It’s a case for the Fire Department.”

Roberts: “Oh, it’s all very well to joke, Dr. Lawton.  Why don’t you prescribe something?”

Lawton: “Surgical treatment seems to be indicated, and I’m merely a general practitioner.”

Roberts: “If Willis were only here, he’d find some way out of it.  Well, I’ll have to go for help somewhere”—

Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Miller, bursting upon the scene: “Oh, what is it?”

Lawton: “Ah, you needn’t go for help, my dear fellow.  It’s come!”

Mrs. Roberts: “What are you all doing here, Edward?”

Mrs. Miller: “Oh, have you had any bad news of Mr. Miller?”

p. 201Mrs. Roberts: “Or Aunt Mary?”

Miller, calling up: “Well, are you going to keep us here all night?  Why don’t you do something?”

Mrs. Miller: “Oh, what’s that?  Oh, it’s Mr. Miller!  Oh, where are you, Ellery?”

Miller: “In the elevator.”

Mrs. Miller: “Oh! and where is the elevator?  Why don’t you get out?  Oh”—

Miller: “It’s caught, and we can’t.”

Mrs. Miller: “Caught?  Oh, then you will be killed—killed—killed!  And it’s all my fault, sending you back after my fan, and I had it all the time in my own pocket; and it comes from my habit of giving it to you to carry in your overcoat pocket, because it’s deep, and the fan can’t break.  And of course I never thought of my own pocket, and I never should have thought of it at all if Mr. Curwen hadn’t been going back to get Mrs. Curwen’s glove, for he’d brought another right after she’d sent him for a left, and we were all having such a laugh about it, and I just happened to put my hand on my pocket, and there I felt the fan.  And oh, what shall I do?”  Mrs. Miller utters these explanations and self-reproaches p. 202in a lamentable voice, while crouching close to the grated door to the elevator shaft, and clinging to its meshes.

Miller: “Well, well, it’s all right.  I’ve got you another fan, here.  Don’t be frightened.”

Mrs. Roberts, wildly: “Where’s Aunt Mary, Edward?  Has Willis got back?”  At a guilty look from her husband: “Edward! don’t tell me that she’s in that elevator!  Don’t do it, Edward!  For your own sake don’t.  Don’t tell me that your own child’s mother’s aunt is down there, suspended between heaven and earth like—like”—

Lawton: “The coffin of the Prophet.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Yes.  Don’t tell me, Edward!  Spare your child’s mother, if you won’t spare your wife!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Agnes! don’t be ridiculous.  I’m here, and I never was more comfortable in my life.”

Mrs. Roberts, calling down the grating “Oh!  Is it you, Aunt Mary?”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Of course it is!”

Mrs. Roberts: “You recognize my voice?”

Mrs. Crashaw: “I should hope so, indeed!  Why shouldn’t I?”

p. 203Mrs. Roberts: “And you know me?  Agnes?  Oh!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Don’t be a goose, Agnes.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, it is you, aunty.  It is!  Oh, I’m so glad!  I’m so happy!  But keep perfectly still, aunty dear, and we’ll soon have you out.  Think of baby, and don’t give way.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “I shall not, if the elevator doesn’t, you may depend upon that.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, what courage you do have!  But keep up your spirits!  Mrs. Miller and I have just come from seeing baby.  She’s gone to sleep with all her little presents in her arms.  The children did want to see you so much before they went to bed.  But never mind that now, Aunt Mary.  I’m only too thankful to have you at all!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “I wish you did have me!  And if you will all stop talking and try some of you to do something, I shall be greatly obliged to you.  It’s worse than it was in the sleeping car that night.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, do you remember it, Aunt Mary?  Oh, how funny you are!”  Turning heroically to her husband: “Now, Edward, dear, p. 204get them out.  If it’s necessary, get them out over my dead body.  Anything!  Only hurry.  I will be calm; I will be patient.  But you must act instantly.  Oh, here comes Mr. Curwen!”  Mr. Curwen mounts the stairs to the landing with every sign of exhaustion, as if he had made a very quick run to and from his house.  “Oh, he will help—I know he will!  Oh, Mr. Curwen, the elevator is caught just below here with my aunt in it and Mrs. Miller’s husband”—

Lawton: “And my girl.”

Bemis: “And my boy.”

Mrs. Curwen, calling up: “And your wife!”

Curwen, horror-struck: “And my wife!  Oh, heavenly powers! what are we going to do?  How shall we get them out?  Why don’t they come up?”

All: “They can’t.”

Curwen: “Can’t?  Oh, my goodness!”  He flies at the grating, and kicks and beats it.

Roberts: “Hold on!  What’s the use of that?”

Lawton: “You couldn’t get at them if you beat the door down.”

Bemis: “Certainly not.”  They lay hands upon him and restrain him.

p. 205Curwen, struggling: “Let me speak to my wife!  Will you prevent a husband from speaking to his own wife?”

Mrs. Miller, in blind admiration of his frenzy: “Yes, that’s just what I said.  If some one had beaten the door in at once”—

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, Edward, dear, let him speak to his wife.”  Tearfully: “Think if I were there!”

Roberts, releasing him: “He may speak to his wife all night.  But he mustn’t knock the house down.”

Curwen, rushing at the grating: “Caroline!  Can you hear me?  Are you safe?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Perfectly.  I had a little faint when we first stuck”—

Curwen: “Faint?  Oh!”

Mrs. Curwen: “But I am all right now.”

Curwen: “Well, that’s right.  Don’t be frightened!  There’s no occasion for excitement.  Keep perfectly calm and collected.  It’s the only way—What’s that ringing?”  The sound of an electric bell is heard within the elevator.  It increases in fury.

Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Miller: “Oh, isn’t it dreadful?”

p. 206The Elevator Boy: “It’s somebody on the ground-floor callin’ the elevator!”

Curwen: “Well, never mind him.  Don’t pay the slightest attention to him.  Let him go to the deuce!  And, Caroline!”

Mrs. Curwen: “Yes?”

Curwen: “I—I—I’ve got your glove all right.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Left, you mean, I hope?”

Curwen: “Yes, left, dearest!  I mean left.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Eight-button?”

Curwen: “Yes.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Light drab?”

Curwen, pulling a light yellow glove from his pocket: “Oh!”  He staggers away from the grating and stays himself against the wall, the mistaken glove dangling limply from his hand.

Roberts, Lawton, and Bemis: “Ah! ha! ha! ha!”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, for shame! to laugh at such a time!”

Mrs. Miller: “When it’s a question of life and death.  There!  The ringing’s stopped.  What’s that?”  Steps are heard mounting the stairway rapidly, several treads at a time.  Mr. Campbell p. 207suddenly bursts into the group on the landing with a final bound from the stairway.  “Oh!”

Campbell: “I can’t find Aunt Mary, Agnes.  I can’t find anything—not even the elevator.  Where’s the elevator?  I rang for it down there till I was black in the face.”

Mrs. Roberts: “No wonder!  It’s here.”

Mrs. Miller: “Between this floor and the floor below.  With my husband in it.”

Curwen: “And my wife!”

Lawton: “And my daughter!”

Bemis: “And my son!”

Mrs. Roberts: “And aunty!”

All: “And it’s stuck fast.”

Roberts: “And the long and short of it is, Willis, that we don’t know how to get them out, and we wish you would suggest some way.”

Lawton: “There’s been a great tacit confidence among us in your executive ability and your inventive genius.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Oh, yes, we know you can do it.”

Mrs. Miller: “If you can’t, nothing can save them.”

Campbell, going to the grating: “Miller!”

p. 208Miller: “Well?”

Campbell: “Start her up!”

Miller: “Now, look here, Campbell, we are not going to stand that; we’ve had enough of it.  I speak for the whole elevator.  Don’t you suppose that if it had been possible to start her up we”—

Mrs. Curwen: “We shouldn’t have been at the moon by this time.”

Campbell: “Well, then, start her down!”

Miller: “I never thought of that.”  To the Elevator Boy: “Start her down.”  To the people on the landing above: “Hurrah!  She’s off!”

Campbell: “Well, now start her up!”

A joint cry from the elevator: “Thank you! we’ll walk up this time.”

Miller: “Here! let us out at this landing!”  They are heard precipitately emerging, with sighs and groans of relief, on the floor below.

Mrs. Roberts, devoutly: “O Willis, it seems like an interposition of Providence, your coming just at this moment.”

Campbell: “Interposition of common sense!  These hydraulic elevators weaken sometimes, and can’t go any farther.”

Roberts, to the shipwrecked guests, who arrive p. 209at the top of the stairs, crestfallen, spent, and clinging to one another for support: “Why didn’t you think of starting her down, some of you?”

Mrs. Roberts, welcoming them with kisses and hand-shakes: “I should have thought it would occur to you at once.”

Miller, goaded to exasperation: “Did it occur to any of you?”

Lawton, with sublime impudence: “It occurred to all of us.  But we naturally supposed you had tried it.”

Mrs. Miller, taking possession of her husband: “Oh, what a fright you have given us!”

Miller: “I given you!  Do you suppose I did it out of a joke, or voluntarily?”

Mrs. Roberts: “Aunty, I don’t know what to say to you.  You ought to have been here long ago, before anything happened.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Oh, I can explain everything in due season.  What I wish you to do now is to let me get at Willis, and kiss him.”  As Campbell submits to her embrace: “You dear, good fellow!  If it hadn’t been for your presence of mind, I don’t know how we should ever have got out of that horrid pen.”

p. 210Mrs. Curwen, giving him her hand: “As it isn’t proper for me to kiss you”—

Campbell: “Well, I don’t know.  I don’t wish to be too modest.”

Mrs. Curwen: “I think I shall have to vote you a service of plate.”

Mrs. Roberts: “Come and look at the pattern of mine.  And, Willis, as you are the true hero of the occasion, you shall take me in to dinner.  And I am not going to let anybody go before you.”  She seizes his arm, and leads the way from the landing into the apartment.  Roberts, Lawton, and Bemis follow stragglingly.

Mrs. Miller, getting her husband to one side: “When she fainted, she fainted at you, of course!  What did you do?”

Miller: “Who?  I!  Oh!”  After a moment’s reflection: “She came to!”

Curwen, getting his wife aside: “When you fainted, Caroline, who revived you?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Who?  Me?  Oh!  How should I know?  I was insensible.”  They wheel arm in arm, and meet Mr. and Mrs. Miller in the middle.  Mrs. Curwen yields precedence with an ironical courtesy: “After you, Mrs. Miller!”

p. 211Mrs. Miller, in a nervous, inimical twitter: “Oh, before the heroine of the lost elevator?”

Mrs. Curwen, dropping her husband’s arm, and taking Mrs. Miller’s: “Let us split the difference.”

Mrs. Miller: “Delightful!  I shall never forget the honor.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Oh, don’t speak of honors!  Mr. Miller was so kind through all those terrible scenes in the elevator.”

Mrs. Miller: “I’ve no doubt you showed yourself duly grateful.”  They pass in, followed by their husbands.

Young Mr. Bemis, timidly: “Miss Lawton, in the elevator you asked me not to leave you.  Did you—ah—mean—I must ask you; it may be my only chance; if you meant—never?”

Miss Lawton, dropping her head: “I—I—don’t—know.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “But if I wished never to leave you, should you send me away?”

Miss Lawton, with a shy, sly upward glance at him: “Not in the elevator!”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Oh!”

Mrs. Roberts, re-appearing at the door: “Why, p. 212you good-for-nothing young things, why don’t you come to—Oh! excuse me!”  She re-enters precipitately, followed by her tardy guests, on whom she casts a backward glance of sympathy.  “Oh, you needn’t hurry!”

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ELEVATOR***



***** This file should be named 3401-h.htm or 3401-h.zip******


This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/0/3401



Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.



*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
  www.gutenberg.org/license.


Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.  See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
     License.  You must require such a user to return or
     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
     Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
     of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.


Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org


Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at 809
North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887.  Email
contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:
     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
     Chief Executive and Director
     [email protected]

Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit:  www.gutenberg.org/donate


Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone.  For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

     www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.