FullReads

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.”