The porter had ignored him by this time, and was sweeping up a great dust. Shotover waited a moment. "You don’t think I could arrange to get up there this afternoon?" he went on. The porter did not turn around. "We don’t allow no one up there without a permit," he answered. "I suppose," returned Shotover, "that you have the keys?" No answer. "You have the keys, haven’t you—the keys to the door there at the foot of the stairs?" "We don’t allow no one to go up there without a permit. Didn’t you hear me before?" Shotover took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket, laid it on the corner of a desk, and contemplated it with reflective sadness. "I’m sorry," he said; "I particularly wanted to see that view before I left." "Well, you see," said the porter, straightening up, "there was a young feller jumped off there once, and a woman tried to do it a little while after, and the officers in the police station downstairs made us shut it up; but ’s long as you only want to see the view and don’t want to jump off, I guess it’ll be all right," and he leaned one hand against the edge of the desk and coughed slightly behind the other. While he had been talking, Shotover had seen between the two windows on the opposite side of the room a very large wooden rack full of pigeon-holes and compartments: The weather and signal-flags were tucked away in these, but on the top was a great folded pile of bunting. It was sooty and grimy, and the new patches in it showed violently white and clean. But Shotover saw, with a strange and new catch at the heart, that it was tri-coloured. "If you will come along with me now, sir," said the porter, "I’ll open the door for you." Shotover let him go out of the room first, then jumped to the other side of the room, snatched the flag down, and, hiding it as best he could, followed him out of the room. They went up the stairs together. If the porter saw anything, he was wise enough to keep quiet about it. "I won’t bother about waiting for you," said he, as he swung the door open. "Just lock the door when you come down, and leave the key with me at the office. If I ain’t there, just give it to the fellow at the news-stand on the first floor, and I can get it in the morning." "All right," answered Shotover, "I will," and he hugged the flag close to him, going up the narrow stairs two at a time. After a long while he came out on the narrow railed balcony that ran around the lantern, and paused for breath as he looked around and below him. Then he turned quite giddy and sick for a moment and clutched desperately at the hand-rail, resisting a strong impulse to sit down and close his eyes.