“But what have you against me?” I asked mournfully. “Why not let me out and do your experimenting alone?” “Because--Lord knows why I'm doing it, you're not important enough to warrant it--I'm bound to convince you that this contrivance is all that I claim!” Oh, had I but spent the days of my youth in a strenuous gymnasium! Had I but been endowed with muscle beyond the dreams of Eugene Sandow, and been expert in boxing and wrestling and in the breaking of bones, as are the Japanese! Then I could have fallen upon Hawkins from the rear and tied him into knots, and even dismembered him if necessary--and escaped. But things are what they are, and Hawkins is more than a match for me; so he banged the door angrily and grasped the lever. “Now, observe with great care the superbly gentle motion with which she rises,” he instructed me. I prepared for that familiar head-going-up-and-the-rest-of-you-staying-below sensation and gritted my teeth. Hawkins pulled at the lever. The Hydro-Vapor Lift quivered for an instant. Then it ascended the shaft--and very gently and pleasantly. “There! I suppose you've trembled until your collar-buttons have worked loose?” Hawkins said contemptuously, turning on me. “Not quite that,” I murmured. “Well, you may as well stop. In a moment or two we shall have reached the top floor; and there, if you like, you can get out and climb down sixteen flights of stairs.” “Thank you,” I said sincerely. “This, of course, is only the slow speed,” Hawkins continued. “We can increase it with the merest touch. Watch.” “Wait! I like it better slow!” I protested. “Oh, I'll slacken down again in a moment.” Hawkins gave a mighty push to the controlling apparatus. A charge of dynamite seemed to have been exploded beneath the Hydro-Vapor Lift! Up we shot! I watched the freshly painted numbers between floors as they whizzed by us with shuddering apprehension: 9--10--11--12---- “We're going too fast!” I cried. Hawkins, I think, was about to laugh derisively. His head had turned to me, and his lips had curled slightly--when the Hydro-Vapor Lift stopped with such tremendous suddenness that we almost flew up against the roof of the car. That was the law of inertia at work. Then we descended to the floor with a crash that seemed calculated to loosen it. That was the law of gravitation. I presume that Hawkins figured without them. I was the first to sit up. For a time my head revolved too rapidly for anything like coherent perception. Then, as the stars began to fade away, I saw that we were stuck fast between floors; and before my eyes--large and prominent in the newness of its paint--loomed up the number 13. It looked ominous. “We--we seem to have stopped,” I said. “Yes,” snapped Hawkins. “What was it? Do you suppose anything was sticking out into the shaft? Has--can it be possible that there is anything like a mechanical error in your Hydro-Vapor Lift?” “No! It's that blamed fool of an engineer!”