"Oh!" shrieked the maid, "it's running away again! Jump, sir!"
The ornate, rococo elevator, as a matter of fact, was running away,
upward, slowly at first. Its astonished occupant turned to jump out--too
late.
"P-push the third button, sir! Quick!" cried the maid, wringing her
hands.
"W-where is it!" stammered the young man, groping nervously in the dark
car. "I can't see any."
"Cr-rack!" went something.
"It's stopped! It's going to fall!" screamed the maid. "Run, Ferdinand!"
The man at the door ran upstairs for a few steps, then distractedly slid
to the bottom, shouting:
"Are you hurt, sir?"
"No," came a disgusted voice from somewhere up the shaft.
Every landing was now noisy with servants, maids sped upstairs, flunkeys
sped down, a butler waddled in a circle.
"Is anybody going to get me out of this?" demanded the voice in the
shaft. "I've a train to catch."
The perspiring butler poked his head into the shaft from below:
"'Ow far hup, sir, might you be?"
"How the devil do I know?"
"Can't you see nothink, sir?"
"Yes, I can see a landing and a red room."
"'E's stuck hunder the library!" exclaimed the butler, and there was a
rush for the upper floors.
The rush was met and checked by a tall, young girl who came leisurely
along the landing, nibbling a chocolate.
"What is all this noise about?" she asked. "Has the elevator gone wrong
again?"
Glancing across the landing at the grille which screened the shaft she
saw the gilded car--part of it--and half of a perfectly strange young man
looking earnestly out.
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