All: “Hello!”

Miller: “Once more!”

All: “Hello!”

Miller: “Now wait a while.”  After an interval: “No, nobody coming.”  He takes out his watch.  “We must repeat this cry at intervals of a half-minute.  Now, then!”  They all join in the cry, repeating it as Mr. Miller makes the signal with his lifted hand.

Miss Lawton: “Oh, it’s no use!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “They don’t hear.”

Mrs. Curwen: “They won’t hear.”

Miller: “Now, then, three times!”

All: “Hello! hello! hello!”

III.

Roberts appears at the outer door of his apartment on the fifth floor.  It opens upon a spacious landing, to which a wide staircase ascends at one side.  At the other is seen the grated door to the shaft of the elevator.  He peers about on all sides, and listens for a moment before he speaks.

Roberts: “Hello yourself.”

Miller, invisibly from the shaft: “Is that you, Roberts?”

Roberts: “Yes; where in the world are you?”

Miller: “In the elevator.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “We’re all here, Edward.”

Roberts: “What!  You, Aunt Mary!”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Yes.  Didn’t I say so?”

Roberts: “Why don’t you come up?”

Miller: “We can’t.  The elevator has got stuck somehow.”

Roberts: “Got stuck?  Bless my soul!  How did it happen?  How long have you been there?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Since the world began!”

Miller: “What’s the use asking how it happened?  We don’t know, and we don’t care.  What we want to do is to get out.”

Roberts: “Yes, yes!  Be careful!”  He rises from his frog-like posture at the grating, and walks the landing in agitation.  “Just hold on a minute!”

Miller: “Oh, we sha’n’t stir.”

Roberts: “I’ll see what can be done.”

Miller: “Well, see quick, please.  We have plenty of time, but we don’t want to lose any.  Don’t alarm Mrs. Miller, if you can help it.”

Roberts: “No, no.”

Mrs. Curwen: “You may alarm Mr. Curwen.”

Roberts: “What!  Are you there?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Here?  I’ve been here all my life!”

Roberts: “Ha! ha! ha!  That’s right.  We’ll soon have you out.  Keep up your spirits.”

Mrs. Curwen: “But I’m not keeping them up.”

Miss Lawton: “Tell papa I’m here too.”

Roberts: “What!  You too, Miss Lawton?”

Mrs. Crashaw: “Yes, and young Mr. Bemis.  Didn’t I tell you we were all here?”

Roberts: “I couldn’t realize it.  Well, wait a moment.”

Mrs. Curwen: “Oh, you can trust us to wait.”

Roberts, returning with Dr. Lawton, and Mr. Bemis, who join him in stooping around the grated door of the shaft: “They’re just under here in the well of the elevator, midway between the two stories.”

Lawton: “Ha! ha! ha!  You don’t say so.”

Bemis: “Bless my heart!  What are they doing there?”

Miller: “We’re not doing anything.”

Mrs. Curwen: “We’re waiting for you to do something.”

Miss Lawton: “Oh, papa!”

Lawton: “Don’t be troubled, Lou, we’ll soon have you out.”

Young Mr. Bemis: “Don’t be alarmed, sir, Miss Lawton is all right.”

Miss Lawton: “Yes, I’m not frightened, papa.”

Lawton: “Well, that’s a great thing in cases of this kind.  How did you happen to get there?”

Miller, indignantly: “How do you suppose?  We came up in the elevator.”

Lawton: “Well, why didn’t you come the rest of the way?”

Miller: “The elevator wouldn’t.”

Lawton: “What seems to be the matter?”

Miller: “We don’t know.”

Lawton: “Have you tried to start it?”

Miller: “Well, I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

Lawton: “Well, be careful what you do.  You might”—

Miller, interrupting: “Roberts, who’s that talking?”

Roberts, coming forward politely: “Oh, excuse me!  I forgot that you didn’t know each other.  Dr. Lawton, Mr. Miller.”  Introducing them.

Lawton: “Glad to know you.”

Miller: “Very happy to make your acquaintance, and hope some day to see you.  And now, if you have completed your diagnosis”—

Mrs. Curwen: “None of us have ever had it before, doctor; nor any of our families, so far as we know.”

Lawton: “Ha! ha! ha!  Very good!  Well, just keep quiet.  We’ll have you all out of there presently.”

Bemis: “Yes, remain perfectly still.”

Roberts: “Yes, we’ll have you out.  Just wait.”

Miller: “You seem to think we’re going to run away.  Why shouldn’t we keep quiet?  Do you suppose we’re going to be very boisterous, shut up here like rats in a trap?”

Mrs. Curwen: “Or birds in a cage, if you want a more pleasing image.”

Mrs. Crashaw: “How are you going to get us out, Edward?”

Roberts: “We don’t know yet.  But keep quiet”—

Miller: “Keep quiet!  Great heavens! we’re afraid to stir a finger.  Now don’t say ‘keep quiet’ any more, for we can’t stand it.”

Lawton: “He’s in open rebellion.  What are you going to do, Roberts?”

Roberts, rising and scratching his head: “Well, I don’t know yet.  We might break a hole in the roof.”

Lawton: “Ah, I don’t think that would do.  Besides you’d have to get a carpenter.”

Roberts: “That’s true.  And it would make a racket, and alarm the house”—staring desperately at the grated doorway of the shaft.  “If I could only find an elevator man—an elevator builder!  But of course they all live in the suburbs, and they’re keeping Christmas, and it would take too long, anyway.”

Bemis: “Hadn’t you better send for the police?  It seems to me it’s a case for the authorities.”

Lawton: “Ah, there speaks the Europeanized mind!  They always leave the initiative to the authorities.  Go out and sound the fire-alarm, Roberts.  It’s a case for the Fire Department.”

Roberts: “Oh, it’s all very well to joke, Dr. Lawton.  Why don’t you prescribe something?”

Lawton: “Surgical treatment seems to be indicated, and I’m merely a general practitioner.”

Roberts: “If Willis were only here, he’d find some way out of it.  Well, I’ll have to go for help somewhere”—

Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Miller, bursting upon the scene: “Oh, what is it?”

Lawton: “Ah, you needn’t go for help, my dear fellow.  It’s come!”

Mrs. Roberts: “What are you all doing here, Edward?”

Mrs. Miller: “Oh, have you had any bad news of Mr. Miller?”

Mrs. Roberts: “Or