"That's three cars has passed me," he snarled, trying to peer through the ground glass that, in the Atlas Building, surrounded the shaft. "I'll tan somebody's hide. Down!" he bellowed at a shadow on the glass. "Have a cigarette," proffered Percy Darrow. "Calm down. To the scientific eye you're out of condition for such emotions. You thicknecks are subject to apoplexy." "Oh, shut up!" growled McCarthy. "There isn't a phone in order in this building two floors either way. I've tried 'em--and there hasn't been for twenty minutes. And I can't get a messenger to answer a call; and that ring-tailed, star-spangled ornament of a janitor won't answer his private bell. I'll get him bounced so high the blackbirds will build nests in his ear before he comes down again." After trying vainly to stop a car on its way up or down, McCarthy stumped down a flight of stairs, followed more leisurely by the calmly unhurried Darrow. Here the same performance was repeated. A half dozen men by now had joined them. So they progressed from story to story until an elevator boy, attracted by their frantic shouts, stopped to see what was the matter. Immediately the door was slid back on its runners, McCarthy seized the astonished operator by the collar. "Come out of that, you scum of the earth!" he roared. "Come out of that and tell me why you don't stop for your signals!" [Illustration: McCarthy stumped down a flight of stairs.] "I ain't seen no signals!" gasped the elevator boy. Some one punched the button, but the little, round, annunciator disk in the car failed to illuminate. "I wonder if there's anything in order in this miserable hole!" snarled McCarthy. "The lights is gone out," volunteered the boy; and indeed for the first time the men now crowding into the car noticed that the incandescents were dead. While McCarthy stormed out to spread abroad impartial threats against two public utility concerns for interfering with his business, Percy Darrow, his curiosity aroused, interviewed the janitor. Under that functionary's guidance he examined the points of entrance for the different wires used for lighting and communication; looked over the private-bell installations, and ascended again to the corridor, abstractedly dusting his fingers. There he found a group of the building's tenants, among whom he distinguished Doctor Knox. "Same complaint, I suppose--no phones, no lights, no bells," he remarked. "Seems to be," replied Knox. "General condition. Acts as though the main arteries had been cut outside." "Inside bells? House phones?" suggested Darrow. The repair men came in double-quick time and great confidence. They went to work in an assured manner, which soon slackened to a slower bewilderment. Some one disappeared, to return with a box of new batteries. The head repair man connected a group of these with a small bell in the executive office. The instrument, however, failed to respond. "Try your ammeter," suggested Darrow, who had followed.