So we were not going up to his offices! We seemed to be heading for the cigar booth, and for a moment I fancied that Hawkins had discovered a new brand and was going to treat me; but he piloted me farther, to a door, and opened it and we passed through. Then I perceived where we were. The Blank Building people had been constructing an addition to their immense stack of offices; we stood in the freshly completed and wholly unoccupied annex. “There, sir!” said Hawkins, extending his forefinger. “What do you see, Griggs?” “Six empty barrels, about three wagon-loads of kindling wood, a new tiled floor, and six brand-new elevators,” I replied. “Oh, hang those things! Look--where I'm pointing!” “Ah! somebody's left a packing-box in one of the elevator-shafts, eh?” Certainly, more than anything else, that was what it resembled. At the first glance it appeared to be nothing more than a crude wooden case about the size of an elevator car, standing in one of the shafts and contrasting unpleasantly with the other new, shining polished cars. “Packing--ugh!” snapped the inventor “Do you know what that is?” “You turned down my first guess,” I suggested humbly. “Griggs, what appears to you as a packing-box is nothing more nor less than the first and only Hawkins Hydro-Vapor Lift!” “The which?” “The--Hawkins--Hydro--Vapor--Lift!” “Hydro-Vapor?” I murmured. “Whatever is that? Steam?” “Certainly.” “And lift, I presume, is English for elevator?” “The words are synonymous,” said Hawkins coldly. “Then why the dickens didn't you call it a steam elevator and be done with it? Wasn't that sufficiently complicated?” “Oh, Griggs, you never seem able to understand! Now, a steam elevator--so called--is an old proposition. A Hydro-Vapor Lift is entirely new and sounds distinctive!” “Yes, it sounds queer enough,” I admitted. “Just examine it,” said the inventor joyously, leading me to the box. There was not much to be examined. Four walls, a ceiling and a floor--all of undressed wood--that was about the extent of the affair; but in the center of the floor lay a great circular iron plate, some two feet across and festooned near the edge with a circle of highly unornamental iron bolt heads. Beside the plate, a lever rising perpendicularly from the floor constituted the sole furnishing of the car. “Now, you've seen a hydraulic elevator?” Hawkins began. “You know how they work--a big steel shaft pushed up the car from underneath, so that when it is in operation the car is simply a box standing on the end of a pole, which rises or sinks, as the operator wills.” “I believe so,” I assented. “I think it's time now for me to be go----” “That principle is fallacious!” the inventor exclaimed. “Consider what it would mean here--a steel shaft sixteen stories high, weighing tons and tons!” “Well?” “Well, sir, I have reversed that idiotic idea!” Hawkins announced triumphantly. “I have had a hole dug sixteen stories deep, and put the steel shaft down into it.”