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 suddenly 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!"
MILLER: "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 at 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."
MRS. 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!"
MRS. 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 pa.s.s 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?"