ROBERTS: 'Yes.'

WILLIS: 'Besides, there's your conscience. Your conscience wouldn't LET you keep Bemis's watch away from him. And if it would, what do you suppose Agnes's conscience would do when she came to find it out? Agnes hasn't got much of a head—the want of it seems to grow upon her; but she's got a conscience as big as the side of a house.'

ROBERTS: 'Oh, I see; I see.'

WILLIS, coming up and standing over him, with his hands in his pockets: 'I tell you what, Roberts, you're in a box.'

ROBERTS, abjectly: 'I know it, Willis; I know it. What do you suggest? You MUST know some way out of it.'

WILLIS: 'It isn't a simple matter like telling them to start the elevator down when they couldn't start her up. I've got to think it over.' He walks to and fro, Roberts's eyes helplessly following his movements. 'How would it do to—No, that wouldn't do, either.'

ROBERTS: 'What wouldn't?'

WILLIS: 'Nothing. I was just thinking—I say, you might—Or, no, you couldn't.'

ROBERTS: 'Couldn't what?'

WILLIS: 'Nothing. But if you were to—No; up a stump that way too.'

ROBERTS: 'Which way? For mercy's sake, my dear fellow, don't seem to get a clew if you haven't it. It's more than I can bear.' He rises, and desperately confronts Willis in his promenade. 'If you see any hope at all—'

WILLIS, stopping: 'Why, if you were a different sort of fellow, Roberts, the thing would be perfectly easy.'

ROBERTS: 'Very well, then. What sort of fellow do you want me to be? I'll be any sort of fellow you like.'

WILLIS: 'Oh, but you couldn't! With that face of yours, and that confounded conscience of yours behind it, you would give away the whitest lie that was ever told.'

ROBERTS: 'Do you wish me to lie? Very well, then, I will lie. What is the lie?'

WILLIS: 'Ah, now you're talking like a man! I can soon think up a lie if you're game for it. Suppose it wasn't so very white—say a delicate blonde!'

ROBERTS: 'I shouldn't care if it were as black as the ace of spades.'

WILLIS: 'Roberts, I honour you! It isn't everybody who could steal an old gentleman's watch, and then be so ready to lie out of it. Well, you HAVE got courage—both kinds—moral and physical.'

ROBERTS: 'Thank you, Willis. Of course I don't pretend that I should be willing to lie under ordinary circumstances; but for the sake of Agnes and the children—I don't want any awkwardness about the matter; it would be the death of me. Well, what do you wish me to say? Be quick; I don't believe I could hold out for a great while. I don't suppose but what Mr. Bemis would be reasonable, even if I—'

WILLIS: 'I'm afraid we couldn't trust him. The only way is for you to take the bull by the horns.'

ROBERTS: 'Yes?'

WILLIS: 'You will not only have to lie, Roberts, but you will have to wear an air of innocent candour at the same time.'

ROBERTS: 'I—I'm afraid I couldn't manage that. What is your idea?'

WILLIS: 'Oh, just come into the room with a laugh when we go back, and say, in an offhand way, "By the way, Agnes, Willis and I made a remarkable discovery in my dressing-room; we found my watch there on the bureau. Ha, ha, ha!" Do you think you could do it?'

ROBERTS: 'I—I don't know.'

WILLIS: 'Try the laugh now.'

ROBERTS: 'I'd rather not—now.'

WILLIS: 'Well, try it, anyway.'

ROBERTS: 'Ha, ha, ha!'

WILLIS: 'Once more.'

ROBERTS: 'Ha, ha, ha!'

WILLIS: 'Pretty ghastly; but I guess you can come it.'

ROBERTS: 'I'll try. And then what?'

WILLIS: 'And then you say, "I hadn't put it on when I went out, and when I got after that fellow and took it back, I was simply getting somebody else's watch!" Then you hold out both watches to her, and laugh again. Everybody laughs, and crowds round you to examine the watches, and you make fun and crack jokes at your own expense all the time, and pretty soon old Bemis says, "Why, this is MY watch, NOW!" and you laugh more than ever—'

ROBERTS: 'I'm afraid I couldn't laugh when he said that. I don't believe I could laugh. It would make my blood run cold.'

WILLIS: 'Oh no, it wouldn't. You'd be in the spirit of it by that time.'

ROBERTS: 'Do you think so? Well?'

WILLIS: 'And then you say, "Well, this is the most remarkable coincidence I ever heard of. I didn't get my own watch from the fellow, but I got yours, Mr. Bemis;" and then you hand it over to him and say, "Sorry I had to break the chain in getting it from him," and then everybody laughs again, and—and that ends it.'

ROBERTS, with a profound sigh: 'Do you think that would end it?'

WILLIS: 'Why, certainly. It'll put old Bemis in the wrong, don't you see? It'll show that instead of letting the fellow escape to go and rob HIM, you attacked him and took Bemis's property back from him yourself. Bemis wouldn't have a word to say. All you've got to do is to keep up a light, confident manner.'

ROBERTS: 'But what if it shouldn't put Bemis in the wrong? What if he shouldn't say or do anything that we've counted upon, but something altogether different?'

WILLIS: 'Well, then, you must trust to inspiration, and adapt yourself to circumstances.'

ROBERTS: 'Wouldn't it be rather more of a joke to come out with the facts at once?'

WILLIS: 'On you it would; and a year from now—say next Christmas— you could get the laugh on Bemis that way. But if you were to risk it now, there's no telling how he'd take it. He's so indignant he might insist upon leaving the house. But with this plan of mine—'

ROBERTS, in despair: 'I couldn't, Willis. I don't feel light, and I don't feel confident, and I couldn't act it. If it were a simple lie—'

WILLIS: 'Oh, lies are never simple; they require the exercise of all your ingenuity. If you want something simple, you must stick to the truth, and throw yourself on Bemis's mercy.'

ROBERTS, walking up and down in great distress: 'I can't do it; I can't do it. It's very kind of you to think it all out for me, but'—struck by a sudden idea—'Willis, why shouldn't YOU do it?'

WILLIS: 'I?'

ROBERTS: 'You are good at those things. You have so much aplomb, you know. YOU could carry it off, you know, first-rate.'

WILLIS, as if finding a certain fascination in the idea: 'Well, I don't know—'

ROBERTS: 'And I could chime in on the laugh. I think I could do that if somebody else was doing the rest.'

WILLIS, after a moment of silent reflection: 'I SHOULD like to do it. I should like to see how old Bemis would look when I played it on him. Roberts, I WILL do it. Not a word! I should LIKE to do it. Now you go on and hurry up your toilet, old fellow; you needn't mind me here. I'll be rehearsing.'

MRS. ROBERTS, knocking at the door, outside: 'Edward, are you NEVER coming?'

ROBERTS: 'Yes, yes; I'll be there in a minute, my dear.'

WILLIS: 'Yes, he'll be there. Run along back, and keep it going till we come. Roberts, I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for this chance.'

ROBERTS: 'I'm glad you like it.'

WILLIS: 'Like it? Of course I do. Or no! Hold on! Wait! It won't do! No; you must take the leading part, and I'll support you, and I'll come in strong if you break down. That's the way we have got to work it. You must make the start.'

ROBERTS: 'Couldn't you make it better, Willis? It's your idea.'

WILLIS: 'No; they'd be sure to suspect me, and they can't suspect you of anything—you're so innocent. The illusion will be complete.'

ROBERTS, very doubtfully: 'Do you think so?'

WILLIS: 'Yes. Hurry up. Let me unbutton that collar for you.'



PART THIRD



SCENE I: MRS. ROBERTS, DR. LAWTON, MRS. CRASHAW, MR. BEMIS, YOUNG MR. AND MRS. BEMIS



MRS. ROBERTS, surrounded by her guests, and confronting from her sofa Mr. Bemis, who still remains sunken in his armchair, has apparently closed an exhaustive recital of the events which have ended in his presence there. She looks round with a mixed air of self-denial and self-satisfaction to read the admiration of her listeners in their sympathetic countenances.

DR. LAWTON, with an ironical sigh of profound impression: 'Well, Mrs. Roberts, you are certainly the most lavishly hospitable of hostesses. Every one knows what delightful dinners you give; but these little dramatic episodes which you offer your guests, by way of appetizer, are certainly unique. Last year an elevator stuck in the shaft with half the company in it, and this year a highway robbery, its daring punishment and its reckless repetition—what the newspapers will call "A Triple Mystery" when it gets to them—and both victims among our commensals! Really, I don't know what more we could ask of you, unless it were the foot-padded footpad himself as a commensal. If this sort of thing should become de rigueur in society generally, I don't know what's to become of people who haven't your invention.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, it's all very well to make fun now, Dr. Lawton; but if you had been here when they first came in—'

YOUNG MRS. BEMIS: 'Yes, indeed, I think so too, Mrs. Roberts. If Mr. Bemis—Alfred, I mean—and papa hadn't been with me when you came out there to prepare us, I don't know what I should have done. I should certainly have died, or gone through the floor.' She looks fondly up into the face of her husband for approval, where he stands behind her chair, and furtively gives him her hand for pressure.'

YOUNG MR. BEMIS: 'Somebody ought to write to the Curwens—Mrs. Curwen, that is—about it.'

MRS. BEMIS, taking away her hand: 'Oh yes, papa, DO write!'

LAWTON: 'I will, my dear. Even Mrs. Curwen, dazzling away in another sphere—hemisphere—and surrounded by cardinals and all the other celestial lights there at Rome, will be proud to exploit this new evidence of American enterprise. I can fancy the effect she will produce with it.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'And the Millers—what a shame they couldn't come! How excited they would have been!—that is, Mrs. Miller. Is their baby very bad, Doctor?'

LAWTON: 'Well, vaccination is always a very serious thing—with a first child. I should say, from the way Mrs. Miller feels about it, that Miller wouldn't be able to be out for a week to come yet.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, how ridiculous you are, Doctor!'

BEMIS, rising feebly from his chair: 'Well, now that it's all explained, Mrs. Roberts, I think I'd better go home; and if you'll kindly have them telephone for a carriage—'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'NO, indeed, Mr. Bemis! We shall not let you go. Why, the IDEA! You must stay and take dinner with us, just the same.'

BEMIS: 'But in this state—'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, never mind the STATE. You look perfectly well; and if you insist upon going, I shall know that you bear a grudge against Edward for not arresting him. Wait! We can put you in perfect order in just a second.' She flies out of the room, and then comes swooping back with a needle and thread, a fresh white necktie, a handkerchief, and a hair-brush. 'There! I can't let you go to Edward's dressing-room, because he's there himself, and the children are in mine, and we've had to put the new maid in the guest-chamber—you ARE rather cramped in flats, that's true; that's the worst of them—but if you don't mind having your toilet made in public, like the King of France—'

BEMIS, entering into the spirit of it: 'Not the least; but—' He laughs, and drops back into his chair.

MRS. ROBERTS, distributing the brush to young Mr. Bemis, and the tie to his wife, and dropping upon her knees before Mr. Bemis: 'Now, Mrs. Lou, you just whip off that crumpled tie and whip on the fresh one, and, MISTER Lou, you give his hair a touch, and I'll have this torn button-hole mended before you can think.' She seizes it and begins to sew vigorously upon it.

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Agnes, you are the most ridiculously sensible woman in the country.'

LAWTON, standing before the group, with his arms folded and his feet well apart, in an attitude of easy admiration: 'The Wounded Adonis, attended by the Loves and Graces. Familiar Pompeiian fresco.'

MRS. ROBERTS, looking around at him: 'I don't see a great many Loves.'

LAWTON: 'She ignores us, Mrs. Crashaw. And after what you've just said!'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Then why don't you do something?'

LAWTON: 'The Loves NEVER do anything—in frescoes. They stand round and sympathise. Besides, we are waiting to administer an anaesthetic. But what I admire in this subject even more than the activity of the Graces is the serene dignity of the Adonis. I have seen my old friend in many trying positions, but I never realised till now all the simpering absurdity, the flattered silliness, the senile coquettishness, of which his benign countenance was capable.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Don't mind him a bit, Mr. Bemis; it's nothing but—'

LAWTON: 'Pure envy. I own it.'

BEMIS: 'All right, Lawton. Wait till—'

MRS. ROBERTS, making a final stitch, snapping off the thread, and springing to her feet, all in one: 'There, have you finished, Mr. and Mrs. Lou? Well, then, take this lace handkerchief, and draw it down from his neck and pin it in his waistcoat, and you have—'

LAWTON, as Mr. Bemis rises to his feet: 'A Gentleman of the Old School. Bemis, you look like a miniature of yourself by Malbone. Rather flattered, but—recognisable.'

BEMIS, with perfectly recovered gaiety: 'Go on, go on, Lawton. I can understand your envy. I can pity it.'

LAWTON: 'Could you forgive Roberts for not capturing the garotter?'

BEMIS: 'Yes, I could. I could give the garotter his liberty, and present him with an admission to the Provident Woodyard, where he could earn an honest living for his family.'

LAWTON, compassionately: 'You ARE pretty far gone, Bemis. Really, I think somebody ought to go for Roberts.'

MRS. ROBERTS, innocently: 'Yes, indeed! Why, what in the world can be keeping him?' A nursemaid enters and beckons Mrs. Roberts to the door with a glance. She runs to her; they whisper; and then Mrs. Roberts, over her shoulder: 'That ridiculous great boy of mine says he can't go to sleep unless I come and kiss him good-night.'

LAWTON: 'Which ridiculous great boy, I wonder?—Roberts, or Campbell? But I didn't know they had gone to bed!'

MRS. BEMIS: 'You are too bad, papa! You know it's little Neddy.'

MRS. ROBERTS, vanishing: 'Oh, I don't mind his nonsense, Lou. I'll fetch them both back with me.'

LAWTON, after making a melodramatic search for concealed listeners at the doors: 'Now, friends, I have a revelation to make in Mrs. Roberts's absence. I have found out the garotter—the assassin.'

ALL THE OTHERS: 'What!'

LAWTON: 'He has been secured—'

MRS. CRASHAW, severely: 'Well, I'm very glad of it.'

YOUNG BEMIS: 'By the police?'

MRS. BEMIS, incredulously: 'Papa!'

BEMIS: 'But there were several of them. Have they all been arrested?'

LAWTON: 'There was only one, and none of him has been arrested.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Where is he, then?'

LAWTON: 'In this house.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Now, Dr. Lawton, you and I are old friends—I shouldn't like to say HOW old—but if you don't instantly be serious, I—I'll carry my rheumatism to somebody else.'

LAWTON: 'My DEAR Mrs. Crashaw, you know how much I prize that rheumatism of yours! I will be serious—I will be only too serious. The garotter is Mr. Roberts himself.'

ALL, horror-struck: 'Oh!'

LAWTON: 'He went out without his watch. He thought he was robbed, but he wasn't. He ran after the supposed thief, our poor friend Bemis here, and took Bemis's watch away, and brought it home for his own.'

YOUNG BEMIS: 'Yes, but—'

MRS. BEMIS: 'But, papa—'

BEMIS: 'How do you know it? I can see how such a thing might happen, but—how do you know it DID?'

LAWTON: 'I divined it.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Nonsense!'

LAWTON: 'Very well, then, I read of just such a ease in the Advertiser a year ago. It occurs annually—in the newspapers. And I'll tell you what, Mrs. Crashaw—Roberts found out his mistake as soon as he went to his dressing-room; and that ingenious nephew of yours, who's closeted with him there, has been trying to put him up to something—to some game.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Willis has too much sense. He would know that Edward couldn't carry out any sort of game.'

LAWTON: 'Well, then, he's getting Roberts to let HIM carry out the game.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Edward couldn't do that either.'

LAWTON: 'Very well, then, just wait till they come back. Will you leave me to deal with Campbell?'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'What are you going to do?'

YOUNG BEMIS: 'You mustn't forget that he got us out of the elevator, sir.'

MRS. BEMIS: 'We might have been there yet if it hadn't been for him, papa.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'I shouldn't want Willis mortified.'

BEMIS: 'Nor Mr. Roberts annoyed. We're fellow-sufferers in this business.'

LAWTON: 'Oh, leave it to me, leave it to me! I'll spare their feelings. Don't be afraid. Ah, there they come! Now don't say anything. I'll just step into the anteroom here.'



SCENE II: MR. ROBERTS, MR. CAMPBELL, AND THE OTHERS



ROBERTS, entering the room before Campbell, and shaking hands with his guests: 'Ah, Mr. Bemis; Mrs. Bemis; Aunt Mary! You've heard of our comical little coincidence—our—Mr. Bemis and my—' He halts, confused, and looks around for the moral support of Willis, who follows hilariously.

WILLIS: 'Greatest joke on record! But I won't spoil it for you, Roberts. Go on!' In a low voice to Roberts: 'And don't look so confoundedly down in the mouth. They won't think it's a joke at all.'

ROBERTS, with galvanic lightness: 'Yes, yes—such a joke! Well, you see—you see—'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'See WHAT, Edward? DO get it out!'

WILLIS, jollily: 'Ah, ha, ha!'

ROBERTS, lugubriously: 'Ah, ha, ha!'

MRS. BEMIS: 'How funny! Ha, ha, ha!'

YOUNG MR. BEMIS: 'Capital! capital!'

BEMIS: 'Excellent!'

WILLIS: 'Go on, Roberts, do! or I shall die! Ah, ha, ha!'

ROBERTS, in a low voice of consternation to Willis: 'Where was I? I can't go on unless I know where I was.'

WILLIS, sotto voce to Roberts: 'You weren't anywhere! For Heaven's sake, make a start!'

ROBERTS, to the others, convulsively: 'Ha, ha, ha! I supposed all the time, you know, that I had been robbed, and—and—'

WILLIS: 'Go on! GO on!'

ROBERTS, whispering: 'I can't do it—'

WILLIS, whispering: 'You've GOT to! You're the beaver that clomb the tree. Laugh naturally, now!'

ROBERTS, with a staccato groan, which he tries to make pass for a laugh: 'And then I ran after the man—' He stops, and regards Mr. Bemis with a ghastly stare.

MRS. CRASHAW: 'What is the matter with you, Edward? Are you sick?'

WILLIS: 'Sick? No! Can't you see that he can't get over the joke of the thing? It's killing him.' To Roberts: 'Brace up, old man! You're doing it splendidly.'

ROBERTS, hopelessly: 'And then the other man—the man that had robbed me—the man that I had pursued—ugh!'

WILLIS: 'Well, it is too much for him. I shall have to tell it myself, I see.'

ROBERTS, making a wild effort to command himself: 'And so—so—this man—man—ma—'

WILLIS: 'Oh, good Lord—' Dr. Lawton suddenly appears from the anteroom and confronts him. 'Oh, the devil!'

LAWTON, folding his arms, and fixing his eyes upon him: 'Which means that you forgot I was coming.'

WILLIS: 'Doctor, you read a man's symptoms at a glance.'

LAWTON: 'Yes; and I can see that you are in a bad way, Mr. Campbell.'

WILLIS: 'Why don't you advertise, Doctor? Patients need only enclose a lock of their hair, and the colour of their eyes, with one dollar to pay the cost of materials, which will be sent, with full directions for treatment, by return mail. Seventh son of a seventh son.'

LAWTON: 'Ah, don't try to jest it away, my poor friend. This is one of those obscure diseases of the heart—induration of the pericardium—which, if not taken in time, result in deceitfulness above all things, and desperate wickedness.'

WILLIS: 'Look here, Dr. Lawton, what are you up to?'

LAWTON: 'Look here, Mr. Campbell, what is your little game?'

WILLIS: 'I don't know what you're up to.' He shrugs his shoulders and walks up the room.

LAWTON, shrugging his shoulders and walking up the room abreast of Campbell: 'I don't know what your little game is.' They return together, and stop, confronting each other.

WILLIS: 'But if you think I'm going to give myself away—'

LAWTON: 'If you suppose I'm going to take you at your own figure—' They walk up the room together, and return as before.

WILLIS: 'Mrs. Bemis, what is this unnatural parent of yours after?'

MRS. BEMIS, tittering: 'Oh, I'm sure I can't tell.'

WILLIS: 'Aunt Mary, you used to be a friend of mine. Can't you give me some sort of clue?'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'I should be ashamed of you, Willis, if you accepted anybody's help.'

WILLIS, sighing: 'Well, this is pretty hard on an orphan. Here I come to join a company of friends at the fireside of a burgled brother-in-law, and I find myself in a nest of conspirators.' Suddenly, after a moment: 'Oh, I understand. Why, I ought to have seen at once. But no matter—it's just as well. I'm sure that we shall hear Dr. Lawton leniently, and make allowance for his well- known foible. Roberts is bound by the laws of hospitality, and Mr. Bemis is the father-in-law of his daughter.'

MRS. BEMIS, in serious dismay: 'Why, Mr. Campbell, what do you mean?'

WILLIS: 'Simply that the mystery is solved—the double garotter is discovered. I'm sorry for you, Mrs. Bemis; and no one will wish to deal harshly with your father when he confesses that it was he who robbed Mr. Roberts and Mr. Bemis. All that they ask is to have their watches back. Go on, Doctor! How will that do, Aunt Mary, for a little flyer?'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'Willis, I declare I never saw anybody like you!' She embraces him with joyous pride.

ROBERTS, coming forward anxiously: 'But, my dear Willis—'

WILLIS, clapping his hand over his mouth, and leading him back to his place: 'We can't let you talk now. I've no doubt you'll be considerate, and all that, but Dr. Lawton has the floor. Go on, Doctor! Free your mind! Don't be afraid of telling the whole truth! It will be better for you in the end.' He rubs his hands gleefully, and then thrusting the points of them into his waistcoat pockets, stands beaming triumphantly upon Lawton.

LAWTON: 'Do you think so?' With well-affected trepidation 'Well, friends, if I must confess this—this—'

WILLIS: 'High-handed outrage. Go on.'

LAWTON: 'I suppose I must. I shall not expect mercy for myself; perhaps you'll say that, as an old and hardened offender, I don't deserve it. But I had an accomplice—a young man very respectably connected, and who, whatever his previous life may have been, had managed to keep a good reputation; a young man a little apt to be misled by overweening vanity and the ill-advised flattery of his friends; but I hope that neither of you gentlemen will be hard upon him, but will consider his youth, and perhaps his congenital moral and intellectual deficiencies, even when you find your watches—on Mr. Campbell's person.' He leans forward, rubbing his hands, and smiling upon Campbell, 'How will that do, Mr. Campbell, for a flyer?'

WILLIS, turning to Mrs. Crashaw: 'One ahead, Aunt Mary?'

LAWTON, clasping him by the hand: 'No, generous youth—even!' They shake hands, clapping each other on the back with their lefts, and joining in the general laugh.

BEMIS, coming forward jovially: 'Well, now, I gladly forgive you both—or whoever DID rob me—if you'll only give me back my watch.'

WILLIS: 'I haven't got your watch.'

LAWTON: 'Nor I.'

ROBERTS, rather faintly, and coming reluctantly forward: 'I—I have it, Mr. Bemis.' He produces it from one waistcoat pocket and hands it to Bemis. Then, visiting the other: 'And what's worse, I have my own. I don't know how I can ever explain it, or atone to you for my extraordinary behaviour. Willis thought you might finally see it as a joke, and I've done my best to pass it off lightly—'

WILLIS: 'And you succeeded. You had all the lightness of a sick hippopotamus.'

ROBERTS: 'I'm afraid so. I'll have the chain mended, of course. But when I went out this evening I left my watch on my dressing- table, and when you struck against me in the Common I missed it, and supposed I had been robbed, and I ran after you and took yours—'

WILLIS: 'Being a man of the most violent temper and the most desperate courage—'

ROBERTS: 'But I hope, my dear sir, that I didn't hurt you seriously?'

BEMIS: 'Not at all—not the least.' Shaking him cordially by both hands: 'I'm all right. Mrs. Roberts has healed all my wounds with her skilful needle; I've got on one of your best neckties, and this lace handkerchief of your wife's, which I'm going to keep for a souvenir of the most extraordinary adventure of my life—'

LAWTON: 'Oh, it's an old newspaper story, Bemis, I tell you.'

WILLIS: 'Well, Aunt Mary, I wish Agnes were here now to see Roberts in his character of MORAL hero. He 'done' it with his little hatchet, but he waited to make sure that Bushrod was all right before he owned up.'

MRS. ROBERTS, appearing: 'Who, Willis?'

WILLIS: 'A very great and good man—George Washington.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'I thought you meant Edward.'

WILLIS: 'Well, I don't suppose there IS much difference.'

MRS. CRASHAW: 'The robber has been caught, Agnes.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Caught? Nonsense! You don't mean it! How can you trifle with such a subject? I know you are joking! Who is it?'

YOUNG BEMIS: 'You never could guess—'

MRS. BEMIS: 'Never in the world!'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'I don't wish to. But oh, Mr. Bemis, I've just come from my own children, and you must be merciful to his family!'

BEMIS: 'For your sake, dear lady, I will.'

BELLA, between the portieres: 'Dinner is ready, Mrs. Roberts.'

MRS. ROBERTS, passing her hand through Mr. Bemis's arm: 'Oh, then you must go in with me, and tell me all about it.'



THE ELEVATOR

by William D. Howells

This etext was produced from the 1911 Houghton Mifflin Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

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 portiere 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 had 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 you'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 portiere, 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."

MRS. 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 a 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. "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 to 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."

MRS. 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."

LAWTON: "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.

BEMIS, 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."

MRS. 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 get 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 bell 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 right 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 now 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 portiere 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."

MRS. 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" -

BEMIS: "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! Well, 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, Mrs. 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!"

CURWEN: "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?"

BEMIS: "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!"

ROBERTS: "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."



II.



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 don'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."

MRS. 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 commence 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."

MRS. 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!"

YOUNG 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."

MILLER: "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: "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."

MRS. 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."

MILLER: "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?"

THE 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" -

MRS. 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!'"

ALL: "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!"



III.



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."

ROBERTS: "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?"

MRS. 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."

LAWTON: "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."

BEMIS: "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 could 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?"

MRS. 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 in 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?"

MRS. 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, get 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.

CURWEN, 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?"

THE 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 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 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, you 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!"



THE PARLOR-CAR

by William D. Howells

This etext was produced from the 1911 Houghton Mifflin Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

SCENE: A Parlor-Car on the New York Central Railroad. It is late afternoon in the early autumn, with a cloudy sunset threatening rain. The car is unoccupied save by a gentleman, who sits fronting one of the windows, with his feet in another chair; a newspaper lies across his lap; his hat is drawn down over his eyes, and he is apparently asleep. The rear door of the car opens, and the conductor enters with a young lady, heavily veiled, the porter coming after with her wraps and travelling-bags. The lady's air is of mingled anxiety and desperation, with a certain fierceness of movement. She casts a careless glance over the empty chairs.

CONDUCTOR: "Here's your ticket, madam. You can have any of the places you like here,—glancing at the unconscious gentleman, and then at the young lady,—"if you prefer, you can go and take that seat in the forward car."

MISS LUCY GALBRAITH: "Oh, I can't ride backwards. I'll stay here, please. Thank you." The porter places her things in a chair by a window, across the car from the sleeping gentleman, and she throws herself wearily into the next seat, wheels round in it, and lifting her veil gazes absently out at the landscape. Her face, which is very pretty, with a low forehead shadowed by thick blond hair, shows the traces of tears. She makes search in her pocket for her handkerchief, which she presses to her eyes. The conductor, lingering a moment, goes out.

PORTER: "I'll be right here, at de end of de cah, if you should happen to want anything, miss,"—making a feint of arranging the shawls and satchels. "Should you like some dese things hung up? Well, dey'll be jus' as well in de chair. We's pretty late dis afternoon; more'n four hours behin' time. Ought to been into Albany 'fore dis. Freight train off de track jus' dis side o' Rochester, an' had to wait. Was you going to stop at Schenectady, miss?"

MISS GALBRAITH, absently: "At Schenectady?" After a pause, "Yes."

PORTER: "Well, that's de next station, and den de cahs don't stop ag'in till dey git to Albany. Anything else I can do for you now, miss?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "No, no, thank you, nothing." The Porter hesitates, takes off his cap, and scratches his head with a murmur of embarrassment. Miss Galbraith looks up at him inquiringly and then suddenly takes out her porte-monnaie, and fees him.

PORTER: "Thank you, miss, thank you. If you want anything at all, miss, I'm right dere at de end of de cah." He goes out by the narrow passage-way beside the smaller enclosed parlor. Miss Galbraith looks askance at the sleeping gentleman, and then, rising, goes to the large mirror, to pin her veil, which has become loosened from her hat. She gives a little start at sight of the gentleman in the mirror, but arranges her head-gear, and returning to her place looks out of the window again. After a little while she moves about uneasily in her chair, then leans forward, and tries to raise her window; she lifts it partly up, when the catch slips from her fingers, and the window falls shut again with a crash.

MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh, DEAR, how provoking! I suppose I must call the porter." She rises from her seat, but on attempting to move away she finds that the skirt of her polonaise has been caught in the falling window. She pulls at it, and then tries to lift the window again, but the cloth has wedged it in, and she cannot stir it. "Well, I certainly think this is beyond endurance! Porter! Ah,—Porter! Oh, he'll never hear me in the racket that these wheels are making! I wish they'd stop,—I"—The gentleman stirs in his chair, lifts his head, listens, takes his feet down from the other seat, rises abruptly, and comes to Miss Galbraith's side.

MR. ALLEN RICHARDS: "Will you allow me to open the window for you?" Starting back, "Miss Galbraith!"

MISS GALBRAITH: "Al—Mr. Richards!" There is a silence for some moments, in which they remain looking at each other; then, -

MR. RICHARDS: "Lucy" -

MISS GALBRAITH: "I forbid you to address me in that way, Mr. Richards."

MR. RICHARDS: "Why, you were just going to call me Allen!"

MISS GALBRAITH: "That was an accident, you know very well,—an impulse" -

MR. RICHARDS: "Well, so is this."

MISS GALBRAITH: "Of which you ought to be ashamed to take advantage. I wonder at your presumption in speaking to me at all. It's quite idle, I can assure you. Everything is at an end between us. It seems that I bore with you too long; but I'm thankful that I had the spirit to not at last, and to act in time. And now that chance has thrown us together, I trust that you will not force your conversation upon me. No gentleman would, and I have always given you credit for thinking yourself a gentleman. I request that you will not speak to me."

MR. RICHARDS: "You've spoken ten words to me for every one of mine to you. But I won't annoy you. I can't believe it, Lucy; I can NOT believe it. It seems like some rascally dream, and if I had had any sleep since it happened, I should think I—"

MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh! You were sleeping soundly enough when I got into the car!"

MR. RICHARDS: "I own it; I was perfectly used up, and I HAD dropped off."

MISS GALBRAITH, scornfully: "Then perhaps you HAVE dreamed it."

MR. RICHARDS: "I'll think so till you tell me again that our engagement is broken; that the faithful love of years is to go for nothing; that you dismiss me with cruel insult, without one word of explanation, without a word of intelligible accusation, even. It's too much! I've been thinking it all over and over, and I can't make head or tail of it. I meant to see you again as soon as we got to town, and implore you to hear me. Come, it's a mighty serious matter, Lucy. I'm not a man to put on heroics and that; but I believe it'll play the very deuce with me, Lucy,—that is to say, Miss Galbraith,—I do indeed. It'll give me a low opinion of woman."

MISS GALBRAITH, averting her face: "Oh, a very high opinion of woman you have had!"

MR. RICHARDS, with sentiment: "Well, there was one woman whom I thought a perfect angel."

MISS GALBRAITH: "Indeed! May I ask her name?"

MR. RICHARDS, with a forlorn smile. "I shall be obliged to describe her somewhat formally as—Miss Galbraith."

MISS GALBRAITH: "Mr. Richards!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Why, you've just forbidden me to say LUCY! You must tell me, dearest, what I have done to offend you. The worst criminals are not condemned unheard, and I've always thought you were merciful if not just. And now I only ask you to be just."

MISS GALBRAITH, looking out of the window: "You know very well what you've done. You can't expect me to humiliate myself by putting your offence into words."

MR. RICHARDS: "Upon my soul, I don't know what you mean! I DON'T know what I've done. When you came at me, last night, with my ring and presents and other little traps, you might have knocked me down with the lightest of the lot. I was perfectly dazed; I couldn't say anything before you were off, and all I could do was to hope that you'd be more like yourself in the morning. And in the morning, when I came round to Mrs. Philips's, I found you were gone, and I came after you by the next train."

MISS GALBRAITH: "Mr. Richards, your personal history for the last twenty-four hours is a matter of perfect indifference to me, as it shall be for the next twenty-four hundred years. I see that you are resolved to annoy me, and since you will not leave the car, I must do so." She rises haughtily from her seat, but the imprisoned skirt of her polonaise twitches her abruptly back into her chair. She bursts into tears. "Oh, what SHALL I do?"

MR. RICHARDS, dryly: "You shall do whatever you like, Miss Galbraith, when I've set you free; for I see your dress is caught in the window. When it's once out, I'll shut the window, and you can call the porter to raise it." He leans forward over her chair, and while she shrinks back the length of her tether, he tugs at the window-fastening. "I can't get at it. Would you be so good as to stand up,—all you can?" Miss Galbraith stands up, droopingly, and Mr. Richards makes a movement towards her, and then falls back. "No, that won't do. Please sit down again." He goes round her chair and tries to get at the window from that side. "I can't get any purchase on it. Why don't you cut out that piece?" Miss Galbraith stares at him in dumb amazement. "Well, I don't see what we're to do: I'll go and get the porter." He goes to the end of the car, and returns. "I can't find the porter,—he must be in one of the other cars. But"— brightening with the fortunate conception—"I've just thought of something. Will it unbutton?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "Unbutton?"

MR. RICHARDS: "Yes; this garment of yours."

MISS GALBRAITH: "My polonaise?" Inquiringly, "Yes."

MR. RICHARDS: "Well, then, it's a very simple matter. If you will just take it off I can easily" -

MISS GALBRAITH, faintly: "I can't. A polonaise isn't like an overcoat" -

MR. RICHARDS, with dismay: "Oh! Well, then"—He remains thinking a moment in hopeless perplexity.

MISS GALBRAITH, with polite ceremony: "The porter will be back soon. Don't trouble yourself any further about it, please. I shall do very well."

MR. RICHARDS, without heeding her: "If you could kneel on that foot- cushion, and face the window" -

MISS GALBRAITH, kneeling promptly: "So?"

MR. RICHARDS: "Yes, and now"—kneeling beside her—"if you'll allow me to—to get at the window-catch,"—he stretches both arms forward; she shrinks from his right into his left, and then back again,—"and pull while I raise the window" -

MISS GALBRAITH: "Yes, yes; but do hurry, please. If any one saw us, I don't know what they would think. It's perfectly ridiculous!"— pulling. "It's caught in the corner of the window, between the frame and the sash, and it won't come! Is my hair troubling you? Is it in your eyes?"

MR. RICHARDS: "It's in my eyes, but it isn't troubling me. Am I inconveniencing you?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh, not at all."

MR. RICHARDS: "Well, now then, pull hard!" He lifts the window with a great effort; the polonaise comes free with a start, and she strikes violently against him. In supporting the shock he cannot forbear catching her for an instant to his heart. She frees herself, and starts indignantly to her feet.

MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh, what a cowardly—subterfuge!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Cowardly? You've no idea how much courage it took." Miss Galbraith puts her handkerchief to her face, and sobs. "Oh, don't cry! Bless my heart,—I'm sorry I did it! But you know how dearly I love you, Lucy, though I do think you've been cruelly unjust. I told you I never should love any one else, and I never shall. I couldn't help it; upon my soul, I couldn't. Nobody could. Don't let it vex you, my"—He approaches her.

MISS GALBRAITH: "Please not touch me, sir! You have no longer any right whatever to do so."

MR. RICHARDS: "You misinterpret a very inoffensive gesture. I have no idea of touching you, but I hope I may be allowed, as a special favor, to—pick up my hat, which you are in the act of stepping on." Miss Galbraith hastily turns, and strikes the hat with her whirling skirts; it rolls to the other side of the parlor, and Mr. Richards, who goes after it, utters an ironical "Thanks!" He brushes it, and puts it on, looking at her where she has again seated herself at the window with her back to him, and continues, "As for any further molestation from me" -

MISS GALBRAITH: "If you WILL talk to me" -

MR. RICHARDS: "Excuse me, I am not talking to you."

MISS GALBRAITH: "What were you doing?"

MR. RICHARDS: "I was beginning to think aloud. I—I was soliloquizing. I suppose I may be allowed to soliloquize?"

MISS GALBRAITH, very coldly: "You can do what you like."

MR. RICHARDS: "Unfortunately that's just what I can't do. If I could do as I liked, I should ask you a single question."

MISS GALBRAITH, after a moment: "Well, sir, you may ask your question." She remains as before, with her chin in her hand, looking tearfully out of the window; her face is turned from Mr. Richards, who hesitates a moment before he speaks.

MR. RICHARDS: "I wish to ask you just this, Miss Galbraith: if you couldn't ride backwards in the other car, why do you ride backwards in this?"

MISS GALBRAITH, burying her face in her handkerchief, and sobbing: "Oh, oh, oh! This is too bad!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Oh, come now, Lucy. It breaks my heart to hear you going on so, and all for nothing. Be a little merciful to both of us, and listen to me. I've no doubt I can explain everything if I once understand it, but it's pretty hard explaining a thing if you don't understand it yourself. Do turn round. I know it makes you sick to ride in that way, and if you don't want to face me—there!"— wheeling in his chair so as to turn his back upon her—"you needn't. Though it's rather trying to a fellow's politeness, not to mention his other feelings. Now, what in the name" -

PORTER, who at this moment enters with his step-ladder, and begins to light the lamps: "Going pretty slow ag'in, sah."

MR. RICHARDS: "Yes; what's the trouble?"

PORTER: "Well, I don't know exactly, sah. Something de matter with de locomotive. We sha'n't be into Albany much 'fore eight o'clock."

MR. RICHARDS: "What's the next station?"

PORTER: "Schenectady."

MR. RICHARDS: "Is the whole train as empty as this car?"

PORTER, laughing: "Well, no, sah. Fact is, dis cah don't belong on dis train. It's a Pullman that we hitched on when you got in, and we's taking it along for one of de Eastern roads. We let you in 'cause de Drawing-rooms was all full. Same with de lady,"—looking sympathetically at her, as he takes his steps to go out. "Can I do anything for you now, miss?"

MISS GALBRAITH, plaintively: "No, thank you; nothing whatever." She has turned while Mr. Richards and The Porter have been speaking, and now faces the back of the former, but her veil is drawn closely. The Porter goes out.

MR. RICHARDS, wheeling round so as to confront her: "I wish you would speak to me half as kindly as you do to that darky, Lucy."

MISS GALBRAITH: "HE is a GENTLEMAN!"

MR. RICHARDS: "He is an urbane and well-informed nobleman. At any rate, he's a man and a brother. But so am I." Miss Galbraith does not reply, and after a pause Mr. Richards resumes. "Talking of gentlemen, I recollect, once, coming up on the day-boat to Poughkeepsie, there was a poor devil of a tipsy man kept following a young fellow about, and annoying him to death—trying to fight him, as a tipsy man will, and insisting that the young fellow had insulted him. By and by he lost his balance and went overboard, and the other jumped after him and fished him out." Sensation on the part of Miss Galbraith, who stirs uneasily in her chair, looks out of the window, then looks at Mr. Richards, and drops her head. "There was a young lady on board, who had seen the whole thing—a very charming young lady indeed, with pale blond hair growing very thick over her forehead, and dark eyelashes to the sweetest blue eyes in the world. Well, this young lady's papa was amongst those who came up to say civil things to the young fellow when he got aboard again, and to ask the honor—he said the HONOR—of his acquaintance. And when he came out of his stateroom in dry clothes, this infatuated old gentleman was waiting for him, and took him and introduced him to his wife and daughter; and the daughter said, with tears in her eyes, and a perfectly intoxicating impulsiveness, that it was the grandest and the most heroic and the noblest thing that she had ever seen, and she should always be a better girl for having seen it. Excuse me, Miss Galbraith, for troubling you with these facts of a personal history, which, as you say, is a matter of perfect indifference to you. The young fellow didn't think at the time he had done anything extraordinary; but I don't suppose he DID expect to live to have the same girl tell him he was no gentleman."

MISS GALBRAITH, wildly: "O Allen, Allen! You KNOW I think you are a gentleman, and I always did!"

MR. RICHARDS, languidly: "Oh, I merely had your word for it, just now, that you didn't." Tenderly, "Will you hear me, Lucy?"

MISS GALBRAITH, faintly: "Yes."

MR. RICHARDS: "Well, what is it I've done? Will you tell me if I guess right?"

MISS GALBRAITH, with dignity: "I am in no humor for jesting, Allen. And I can assure you that though I consent to hear what you have to say, or ask, NOTHING will change my determination. All is over between us."