"Not quite that," I murmured.
"Well, you may as well stop. In a moment or two we shall have reached the top floor; and there, if you like, you can get out and climb down sixteen flights of stairs."
"Thank you," I said sincerely.
"This, of course, is only the slow speed," Hawkins continued. "We can increase it with the merest touch. Watch."
"Wait! I like it better slow!" I protested.
"Oh, I"ll slacken down again in a moment."
Hawkins gave a mighty push to the controlling apparatus. A charge of dynamite seemed to have been exploded beneath the Hydro-Vapor Lift!
Up we shot! I watched the freshly painted numbers between floors as they whizzed by us with shuddering apprehension: 9--10--11--12----
"We"re going too fast!" I cried.
Hawkins, I think, was about to laugh derisively. His head had turned to me, and his lips had curled slightly--when the Hydro-Vapor Lift stopped with such tremendous suddenness that we almost flew up against the roof of the car.
That was the law of inertia at work. Then we descended to the floor with a crash that seemed calculated to loosen it. That was the law of gravitation.
I presume that Hawkins figured without them.
I was the first to sit up. For a time my head revolved too rapidly for anything like coherent perception. Then, as the stars began to fade away, I saw that we were stuck fast between floors; and before my eyes--large and prominent in the newness of its paint--loomed up the number 13.
It looked ominous.
"We--we seem to have stopped," I said.
"Yes," snapped Hawkins.
"What was it? Do you suppose anything was sticking out into the shaft?
Has--can it be possible that there is anything like a mechanical error in your Hydro-Vapor Lift?"
"No! It"s that blamed fool of an engineer!"
"What!" I exclaimed. "Do you blame him?"
"Certainly."
"But how was it his fault?"
"Oh--you see--bah!" said the inventor, turning rather red. "You wouldn"t understand if I were to explain the whole thing, Griggs."
"But I should like to know, Hawkins."
"Why?"
"I want to write a little account of the why and the wherefore, so that they can find it in case--anything happens to us."
Hawkins turned away loftily.
"We"ll have to get out of this," he said.
He pulled at his lever with a confident smile. The Hydro-Vapor Lift did not budge the fraction of an inch.
Then he pushed it back--and forward again. And still the inexorable 13 stood before us.
"Confound that--er--engineer!" growled the inventor.
Just then the Hydro-Vapor Lift indulged in a series of convulsive shudders.
It was too much for my nerves. I felt certain that in another second we were to drop, and I shouted l.u.s.tily:
"Help! Help! Help!"
"Shut up!" cried Hawkins. "Do you want to get the workmen here and have them see that something"s wrong?"
I affirmed that intention with unprintable force.
"Well, I don"t!" said the inventor. "Why, Griggs, I"m figuring on equipping this building with my lift in a couple of months!"
"Are--are they going to allow that?" I gasped.
"Why, nothing"s settled as yet; but it is understood that if this experimental model proves a success----"
But my cry had summoned aid. Above us, and hidden by the roof of the car, some one shouted:
"Hallo! Phat is it?"
"Hallo!" I returned.
"Air ye in the box?" said the voice, its owner evidently astonished.
"Yes! Get an ax!"
"Phat?"
"An ax!" I repeated. "Get an ax and chop out the roof of this beastly thing so that we can climb out, and----"
Hawkins clapped a hand over my mouth, and his scowl was sinister.
"Haven"t you a grain of sense left?" he hissed.
"Yes, of course, I have. That"s why I want an ax to----"
"Tell that crazy engineer I want more steam!" bawled Hawkins, drowning my voice.
"More steam?" said the person above. "More steam an" an ax, is it?"