The Elevator Part 4

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 p.r.o.nounced 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!"