At the foot of more stairs the porter let down his burdens, and a boy in a general's uniform seized them. The porter said, mopping his brow to emphasize his achievement: “This is fur's I go.” “Oh, all right! Much obliged,” said Adna. He just pretended to walk away as a joke on the porter. When he saw the man's white stare aggravated sufficiently, Adna smiled and handed him a dime. The porter stared and turned away in bitter grief. Then his chuckle returned as he went his way, telling himself: “And the bes' of it was, I fit for him! I just had to git that man.” He told the little porter about it, and when the little porter, who had been scared away from the Thropps and left to carry Charity Coe's dainty hand-bags, showed the big porter what he had received, still the big porter laughed. He knew how to live, that big porter. Kedzie followed the little general up the steps and around to the desk. Her father realized that his fellow-passenger had been teasing him when he referred to this place as a boarding-house, but he was not at all crushed by the magnificence he was encountering. He felt that he was in for it--so he cocked his toothpick pluckily and wrote on the loose-leaf register the room clerk handed him: A. Thropp, wife and daughter, Nimrim, Mo. The room clerk read the name as if it were that of a potentate whose incognito he would respect, and murmured: “About what accommodation would you want, Mr. Thropp?” “Two rooms--one for the wife and m'self, one for the daughter.” “Yes, sir. And about how much would you want to pay?” “How do they run?” “We can give you two nice adjoining rooms for twelve dollars--up.” Mr. Thropp made a hasty calculation. Twelve dollars a week for board and lodging was not so bad. He nodded. The room clerk marked down a number and slid a key to the page, who gathered the family treasures together. Kedzie had more or less helplessly recognized the page's admiration of her when he first took the things from the porter. The sense of her beauty had choked the boy's amusement at her parents. Later Kedzie caught the glance of the room clerk and saw that she startled him and cheated him of his smile at Adna. Still later the elevator-boy gave her one respectful look of approval. Kedzie's New York stir was already beginning. The page ushered the Thropps into the elevator, and said, “Nineteen.” It was the number of the floor, not the room. Adna warned his women folk that “she” was about to go up, but they were not prepared for that swift vertical leap toward the clouds. Another floor, and Mrs. Thropp would have screamed. The altitude affected her. Then the thing stopped, and the boy led them down a corridor so long that Adna said, “Looks like we'd be stranded a hundred miles from nowheres.”