_Campbell_: “I’ll tell them they’ve just one chance in a hundred to save
their lives, and that one is open to them for just five minutes.”
_Lawton_: “Tell my daughter that I’ve been here half an hour, and
everybody knows I drove here with her.”
_Bemis_: “Tell my son that the next time I’ll walk, and let him drive.”
_Mrs. Miller_: “Tell Mr. Miller I found I had my fan after all.”
_Curwen_: “And Mrs. Curwen that I’ve got her glove all right.” He holds
it up.
_Mrs. Roberts_, at a look of mystification and demand from her brother:
“Never mind explanations, Willis. They’ll understand, and we’ll explain
when you get back.”
_Lawton_, examining the glove which _Curwen_ holds up: “Why, so it _is_
right!”
_Curwen_: “What do you mean?”
_Lawton_: “Were you sent back to get a _left_ glove?”
_Curwen_: “Yes, yes; of course.”
_Lawton_: “Well, if you’ll notice, this is a right one. The one at home
is left.”
_Curwen_, staring helplessly at it: “Gracious Powers! what shall I do?”
_Lawton_: “Pray that Mrs. Curwen may _never_ come.”
_Mr. Curwen_, dashing through the door: “I’ll be back by the time Mr.
Campbell returns.”
_Mrs. Miller_, with tokens of breaking down visible to _Mrs. Roberts_: “I
wonder what could have kept Mr. Miller. It’s so very mysterious, I”—
_Mrs. Roberts_, suddenly seizing her by the arm, and hurrying her from
the room: “Now, Mrs. Miller, you’ve just got time to see my baby.”
_Mr. Roberts_, winking at his remaining guests: “A little cry will do
them good. I saw as soon as Willis came in instead of her aunt, that my
wife couldn’t get through without it. They’ll come back as bright as”—
_Lawton_: “Bemis, should you mind a bereaved father falling upon your
neck?”
_Bemis_: “Yes, Lawton, I think I should.”
_Lawton_: “Well, it _is_ rather odd about all those people. You can say
of one or two that they’ve been delayed, but five people can’t have been
delayed. It’s too much. It amounts to a coincidence. Hello! What’s
that?”
_Roberts_: “What’s what?”
_Lawton_: “I thought I heard a cry.”
_Roberts_: “Very likely you did. They profess to deaden these floors so
that you can’t hear from one apartment to another. But I know pretty
well when my neighbor overhead is trying to wheel his baby to sleep in a
perambulator at three o’clock in the morning; and I guess our young lady
lets the people below understand when she’s wakeful. But it’s the only
way to live, after all. I wouldn’t go back to the old
up-and-down-stairs, house-in-a-block system on any account. Here we all
live on the ground-floor practically. The elevator equalizes
everything.”
_Bemis_: “Yes, when it happens to be where you are. I believe I prefer
the good old Florentine fashion of walking upstairs, after all.”
_Lawton_: “Roberts, I _did_ hear something. Hark! It sounded like a cry
for help. There!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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