"P-push the third b.u.t.ton, sir! Quick!" cried the maid, wringing her hands.
"W-where is it!" stammered the young man, groping nervously in the dark car. "I can"t see any."
"Cr-rack!" went something.
"It"s stopped! It"s going to fall!" screamed the maid. "Run, Ferdinand!"
The man at the door ran upstairs for a few steps, then distractedly slid to the bottom, shouting:
"Are you hurt, sir?"
"No," came a disgusted voice from somewhere up the shaft.
Every landing was now noisy with servants, maids sped upstairs, flunkeys sped down, a butler waddled in a circle.
"Is anybody going to get me out of this?" demanded the voice in the shaft. "I"ve a train to catch."
The perspiring butler poked his head into the shaft from below:
""Ow far hup, sir, might you be?"
"How the devil do I know?"
"Can"t you see nothink, sir?"
"Yes, I can see a landing and a red room."
""E"s stuck hunder the library!" exclaimed the butler, and there was a rush for the upper floors.
The rush was met and checked by a tall, young girl who came leisurely along the landing, nibbling a chocolate.
"What is all this noise about?" she asked. "Has the elevator gone wrong again?"
Glancing across the landing at the grille which screened the shaft she saw the gilded car--part of it--and half of a perfectly strange young man looking earnestly out.
"It"s the doctor!" wailed her maid.
"That isn"t Dr. Blimmer!" said her mistress.
"No, miss, it"s a perfectly strange doctor."
"I am _not_ a doctor," observed the young man, coldly.
Sacharissa drew nearer.
"If that maid of yours had asked me," he went on, "I"d have told her. She saw me coming down the steps of a physician"s house--I suppose she mistook my camera case for a case of medicines."
"I did--oh, I did!" moaned the maid, and covered her head with her ap.r.o.n.
"The thing to do," said Sacharissa, calmly, "is to send for the nearest plumber. Ferdinand, go immediately!"
"Meanwhile," said the imprisoned young man, "I shall miss my train. Can"t somebody break that grille? I could climb out that way."
"Sparks," said Miss Carr, "can you break that grille?"
Sparks tried. A kitchen maid brought a small tackhammer--the only ""ammer in the "ouse," according to Sparks, who pounded at the foliated steel grille and broke the hammer off short.
"Did it "it you in the "ead, sir?" he asked, panting.
"Exactly," replied the young man, grinding his teeth.
Sparks "oped as "ow it didn"t "urt the gentleman. The gentleman stanched his wound in terrible silence.
Presently Ferdinand came back to report upon the availability of the family plumber. It appeared that all plumbers, locksmiths, and similar indispensable and free-born artisans had closed shop at noon and would not reopen until after New Year"s, subject to the Const.i.tution of the United States.
"But this gentleman cannot remain here until after New Year"s," said Sacharissa. "He says he is in a hurry. Do you hear, Sparks?"
The servants stood in a helpless row.
"Ferdinand," she said, "Mr. Carr told you to have that elevator fixed before it was used again!"
Ferdinand stared wildly at the grille and ran his thumb over the bars.
"And Clark"--to her maid--"I am astonished that you permitted this gentleman to risk the elevator."
"He was in a hurry--I thought he was a doctor." The maid dissolved into tears.
"It is now," broke in the voice from the shaft, "an utter impossibility for me to catch any train in the United States."
"I am dreadfully sorry," said Sacharissa.
"Isn"t there an ax in the house?"
The butler mournfully denied it.
"Then get the furnace bar."
It was fetched; nerve-racking blows rained on the grille; puffing servants applied it as a lever, as a battering-ram, as a club. The house rang like a boiler factory.
"I can"t stand any more of that!" shouted the young man. "Stop it!"
Sacharissa looked about her, hands closing both ears.
"Send them away," said the young man, wearily. "If I"ve got to stay here I want a chance to think."
After she had dismissed the servants Sacharissa drew up a chair and seated herself a few feet from the grille. She could see half the car and half the man--plainer, now that she had come nearer.
He was a young and rather attractive looking fellow, cheek tied up in his handkerchief, where the head of the hammer had knocked off the skin.