All this, Carter told himself firmly, was a chaos of the mind and nothing more. It was mental panic of such violence that it was manifesting in the physical. He told himself this while he sought to maintain equilibrium while standing upon nothing and wondering where such a terrific wind could come from in a sheltered elevator shaft. Then it was over. The hurricane subsided; the floor stiffened beneath them and they were lying in a heap--a heap made interesting by Peggy Wilson's legs sprawled above the others in a very unladylike manner. Wilmer Payton groaned. "Shut up," Fleming Carter said sharply. "Don't start a wave of panic and hysteria. You aren't hurt!" "How the hell do you know I ain't?" Wilmer Payton demanded with childlike docility. "Because I'm not and no one else seems to be and we all fell the same distance." Fleming Carter began to extricate himself from the pack. This necessitated pressing rather personally against Peggy Wilson. He did what he had to do and then drew the girl's skirt down as gently and hastily as possible. He was relieved to find she was in no shape to care what anyone did with her skirt. * * * * * Meanwhile, the elevator operator, upon finding he could not move the elevator, returned to reassure the occupants. He went to the seventh floor and called down very cheerily, "Everything's all right, folks. If this'd happened before six o'clock there'd be plenty of blessed people around, but it's almost seven and the engineer ain't back from supper yet. It won't be but a little while though, and then--" The operator became aware that only silence answered him. Had they been scared dumb? "You--hey you--down there--" More silence. The operator frowned and crawled down into the shaft. He looked through the trap. Empty. "Well I'll be damned!" he said. And because an obvious situation was covered by an obvious answer, added, "All four of them crawled out and went home. Funny they couldn't stick around a few minutes." He did not ponder the difficulties involved in such an escape. The only direction they could have gone was up and out on the seventh floor. He thus accepted the obvious. And his only thought on the subject was that he'd like to have been the one to boost the girl up. Later, he bawled the engineer out and that was that so far as he was concerned. But the situation was far less simple for the four passengers. As Fleming Carter struggled to his feet, Walter Maltby used his leg for a ladder and came erect also and said, "I'll bet Jenny will sue somebody for this! Jenny won't let them get away with it! Not for a minute." Wilmer Payton was also on his feet looking dully about him. Fleming Carter said, "Why don't you help the lady, young man? I'm sure she would appreciate the courtesy from you more than myself or--?" He looked questioningly at the other male member of the quartette. "Walter Maltby--and as I was saying, Jenny will never--" "I'm sure she won't."