_Curwen_: “Well, never mind him. Don’t pay the slightest attention to him. Let him go to the deuce! And, Caroline!” _Mrs. Curwen_: “Yes?” _Curwen_: “I—I—I’ve got your glove all right.” _Mrs. Curwen_: “Left, you mean, I hope?” _Curwen_: “Yes, left, dearest! I _mean_ left.” _Mrs. Curwen_: “Eight-button?” _Curwen_: “Yes.” _Mrs. Curwen_: “Light drab?” _Curwen_, pulling a light yellow glove from his pocket: “Oh!” He staggers away from the grating and stays himself against the wall, the mistaken glove dangling limply from his hand. _Roberts_, _Lawton_, and _Bemis_: “Ah! ha! ha! ha!” _Mrs. Roberts_: “Oh, for shame! to laugh at such a time!” _Mrs. Miller_: “When it’s a question of life and death. There! The ringing’s stopped. What’s that?” Steps are heard mounting the stairway rapidly, several treads at a time. Mr. Campbell suddenly bursts into the group on the landing with a final bound from the stairway. “Oh!” _Campbell_: “I can’t find Aunt Mary, Agnes. I can’t find anything—not even the elevator. Where’s the elevator? I rang for it down there till I was black in the face.” _Mrs. Roberts_: “No wonder! It’s here.” _Mrs. Miller_: “Between this floor and the floor below. With my husband in it.” _Curwen_: “And my wife!” _Lawton_: “And my daughter!” _Bemis_: “And my son!” _Mrs. Roberts_: “And aunty!” _All_: “And it’s stuck fast.” _Roberts_: “And the long and short of it is, Willis, that we don’t know how to get them out, and we wish you would suggest some way.” _Lawton_: “There’s been a great tacit confidence among us in your executive ability and your inventive genius.” _Mrs. Roberts_: “Oh, yes, we know you can do it.” _Mrs. Miller_: “If you can’t, nothing can save them.” _Campbell_, going to the grating: “Miller!” _Miller_: “Well?” _Campbell_: “Start her up!” _Miller_: “Now, look here, Campbell, we are not going to stand that; we’ve had enough of it. I speak for the whole elevator. Don’t you suppose that if it had been possible to start her up we”— _Mrs. Curwen_: “We shouldn’t have been at the moon by this time.” _Campbell_: “Well, then, start her _down_!” _Miller_: “I never thought of that.” To the _Elevator Boy_: “Start her down.” To the people on the landing above: “Hurrah! She’s off!” _Campbell_: “Well, _now_ start her up!” A joint cry from the elevator: “Thank you! we’ll walk up this time.” _Miller_: “Here! let us out at this landing!” They are heard precipitately emerging, with sighs and groans of relief, on the floor below. _Mrs. Roberts_, devoutly: “O Willis, it seems like an interposition of Providence, your coming just at this moment.” _Campbell_: “Interposition of common sense! These hydraulic elevators weaken sometimes, and can’t go any farther.” _Roberts_, to the shipwrecked guests, who arrive at the top of the stairs, crestfallen, spent, and clinging to one another for support: “Why didn’t you think of starting her down, some of you?”