“Well, of course,” said Mrs. Harmon smoothly, “any friend of Mr. Barker's----” “We just been talkin' over old times in here,” interrupted the mate. “I guess it was me shoved that bolt in. I didn't want to have anybody see me talkin' with him till I'd got some clothes that would be a little more of a credit to him.” “Well, that's right,” said Mrs. Harmon appreciatively. “I always like to have everybody around my house looking neat and respectable. I keep a first-class house, and I don't have any but first-class help, and I expect them to dress accordingly, from the highest to the lowest.” “Yes, ma'am,” said the mate, “that's the way I felt about it myself, me and Mr. Barker both; and he was just tellin' me that if I was a mind to give the elevator a try, he'd lend me a suit of his clothes.” “Very well, then,” said Mrs. Harmon; “if Mr. Barker and you are a mind to fix it up between you----” “Oh, we are!” said the mate. “There won't be any trouble about that.” “I don't suppose I need to stop at the intelligence office. I presume Mr. Barker will show you how to work the elevator. He helped us out with it himself at first.” “Yes, that's what he said,” the other chimed in. “But I guess I'd better go and change my clothes first. Well, mate,” he added to Lemuel, “I'm ready when you're ready.” Lemuel rose trembling from the chair where he had been chained, as it seemed to him, while the mate and Mrs. Harmon arranged their affair with his tacit connivance. He had not spoken a word; he feared so much to open his lips lest another lie should come out of them, that his sense of that danger was hardly less than his terror at the captivity in which he found himself. “Yes,” said Mrs. Harmon, “I'll look after the office till you get back. Mr. Barker 'll show you where you can sleep.” “Thank you, ma'am,” said the mate, with gratitude that won upon her. “And I'm glad,” she added, “that it's a friend of Mr. Barker's that's going to have the place. We think everything of Mr. Barker here.” “Well, you can't think more of him than what we do up home,” rejoined the other with generous enthusiasm. In Lemuel's room he was not less appreciative. “Why, mate, it does me good to see how you've got along. I got to write a letter home at once, and tell the folks what friends you've got in Boston. I don't believe they half understand it.” He smiled joyously upon Lemuel, who stood stock still, with such despair in his face that probably the wretch pitied him.