Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Western stories
Shuey was tugging at the wire rope. He called, in tones that seemed to
come from a panting chest: “Take a pull at it yourself, sir! Can you
move it?”
Armorer grasped the rope viciously; Shuey was on the seat pulling from
above. “We're stuck, sir, fast!”
“Can't you get down either?”
“Divil a bit, saving your presence, sir. Do ye think like the
water-works could be busted?”
“Can't you make somebody hear?” panted Armorer.
“Well, you see there's a deal of noise of the machinery,” said Shuey,
scratching his chin with a thoughtful air, “and they expect we've gone
up!”
“Best try, anyhow. This infernal machine may take a notion to drop!”
said Armorer.
“And that's true, too,” acquiesced Shuey. Forthwith he did lift up his
voice in a loud wailing: “OH--H, Jimmy! OH--H, Jimmy Ryan!”
Jimmy might have been in Chicago for any response he made; though
Armorer shouted with Shuey; and at every pause the whir of the machinery
mocked the shouters. Indescribable moans and gurgles, with a continuous
malignant hiss, floated up to them from the rebel steam below, as from
a volcano considering eruption. “They'll be bound to need the elevator
some time, if they don't need US, and that's one comfort!” said Shuey,
philosophically.
“Don't you think if we pulled on her we could get her up to the next
floor, by degrees? Now then!”
Armorer gave a dash and Shuey let out his muscles in a giant tug. The
elevator responded by an astonishing leap that carried them past three
or four floors!
“Stop her! stop her!” bawled Shuey; but in spite of Armorer's pulling
himself purple in the face, the elevator did not stop until it bumped
with a crash against the joists of the roof.
“Well, do you suppose we're stuck HERE?” growled Armorer.
“Well, sir, I'll try. Say, don't be exerting yourself violent. It
strikes me she's for all the world like the wimmen,--in exthremes, sir,
in exthremes! And it wouldn't be noways so pleasant to go riproaring
that gait down cellar! Slow and easy, sir, let me manage her. Hi! she's
working.”
In fact, by slow degrees and much puffing, Shuey got the erratic box to
the next floor, where, disregarding Shuey's protestations that he could
“make her mind,” Mr. Armorer got out, and they left the elevator to its
fate. It was a long way, through many rooms, downstairs. Shuey would
have beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but Armorer was in a
raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed
by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously
rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling
it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room.
But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten
yards. “Girls is silly things,” said the philosopher Shuey, “but being
born that way it ain't to be expected otherwise!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account