No; it wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be skyed on that twenty-third floor, unable to come down, unable to go home. It _must_ be a nightmare. Such things didn’t happen. He was Teddy Follett, a good boy at heart, with an honorable record in the navy. He had never meant to steal, but what could he do? The money was there, to be stacked in the vaults of Collingham & Law’s, not to be touched for months, very likely, and the home needs imperative. He couldn’t see his father and mother turned out of house and home because they couldn’t pay their taxes. It was not in common sense. Nothing was in common sense. That he should be dragged into court, that his mother should break her heart, that shame should be showered on his sisters was ridiculous. Somewhere in the universe there was a great big principle that was on his side, though he didn’t know what it was. What he did know was that crying was unmanly. Sopping up his tears and trying not to think, he jumped into the first lift that stopped and got out at floor eleven. There he went straight to the lavatory, which he now knew how to place, and once more found the door locked. Though again it was reprieve, it was reprieve almost unwelcome. The first passing lift was going upward, and so he ascended to floor seventeen. Here again the lavatory was locked, as it was on floors nineteen and twenty-five, both of which he tried. He began to understand that they were locked according to a principle, and that for those seeking privacy in which to shoot themselves they offered no resource. Moreover, offices were closing and the great building emptying itself rapidly. The rush was all to the lifts going downward. He, too, must go downward. To be found skulking in corridors where he had no business would expose him to suspicion. After nearly an hour spent above he descended to the atrium, where Flynn and Jackman might be watching the cages disgorge, knowing that in time he must appear from one of them. But he walked out without interference. A far hint of twilight was deepening the atmosphere round the heads of the great columns, and the waning sunshine spoke of workers seeking rest. Streams of men and women, mostly young, were setting toward each of the exits, to Broadway, to Fulton Street, to Dey Street; and he had only to drop into one of them. He chose that toward Dey Street, finding himself in the open air, in full exercise of his liberty.