The Elevator
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William D. Howells >> The Elevator
This etext was produced from the 1911 Houghton Mifflin Company
edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
THE ELEVATOR
by William D. Howells
I.
SCENE: Through the curtained doorway of MRS. EDWARD ROBERTS'S pretty
drawing-room, in Hotel Bellingham, shows the snowy and gleaming array
of a table set for dinner, under the dim light of gas-burners turned
low. An air of expectancy pervades the place, and the uneasiness of
MR. ROBERTS, in evening dress, expresses something more as he turns
from a glance into the dining-room, and still holding the portiere
with one hand, takes out his watch with the other.
MR. ROBERTS to MRS. ROBERTS entering the drawing-room from regions
beyond: "My dear, it's six o'clock. What can have become of your
aunt?"
MRS. ROBERTS, with a little anxiety: "That was just what I was going
to ask. She's never late; and the children are quite heart-broken.
They had counted upon seeing her, and talking Christmas a little
before they were put to bed."
ROBERTS: "Very singular her not coming! Is she going to begin
standing upon ceremony with us, and not come till the hour?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "Nonsense, Edward! She's been detained. Of course
she'll be here in a moment. How impatient you are!"
ROBERTS: "You must profit by me as an awful example."
MRS. ROBERTS, going about the room, and bestowing little touches here
and there on its ornaments: "If you'd had that new cook to battle
with over this dinner, you'd have learned patience by this time
without any awful example."
ROBERTS, dropping nervously into the nearest chair: "I hope she
isn't behind time."
MRS. ROBERTS, drifting upon the sofa, and disposing her train
effectively on the carpet around her: "She's before time. The
dinner is in the last moment of ripe perfection now, when we must
still give people fifteen minutes' grace." She studies the
convolutions of her train absent-mindedly.
ROBERTS, joining in its perusal: "Is that the way you've arranged to
be sitting when people come in?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "Of course not. I shall get up to receive them."
ROBERTS: "That's rather a pity. To destroy such a lovely pose."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Do you like it?"
ROBERTS: "It's divine."
MRS. ROBERTS: "You might throw me a kiss."
ROBERTS: "No; if it happened to strike on that train anywhere, it
might spoil one of the folds. I can't risk it." A ring is heard at
the apartment door. They spring to their feet simultaneously.
MRS. ROBERTS: "There's Aunt Mary now!" She calls into the
vestibule, "Aunt Mary!"
DR. LAWTON, putting aside the vestibule portiere, with affected
timidity: "Very sorry. Merely a father."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Oh! Dr. Lawton? I am so glad to see you!" She
gives him her hand: "I thought it was my aunt. We can't understand
why she hasn't come. Why! where's Miss Lawton?"
LAWTON: "That is precisely what I was going to ask you."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Why, she isn't here."
LAWTON: "So it seems. I left her with the carriage at the door when
I started to walk here. She called after me down the stairs that she
would be ready in three seconds, and begged me to hurry, so that we
could come in together, and not let people know I'd saved half a
dollar by walking."
MRS. ROBERTS: "SHE'S been detained too!"
ROBERTS, coming forward: "Now you know what it is to have a
delinquent Aunt-Mary-in-law."
LAWTON, shaking hands with him: "O Roberts! Is that you? It's
astonishing how little one makes of the husband of a lady who gives a
dinner. In my time--a long time ago--he used to carve. But
nowadays, when everything is served a la Russe, he might as well be
abolished. Don't you think, on the whole, Roberts, you'd better not
have come
ROBERTS: "Well, you see, I had no excuse. I hated to say an
engagement when I hadn't any."
LAWTON: "Oh, I understand. You WANTED to come. We all do, when
Mrs. Roberts will let us." He goes and sits down by MRS. ROBERTS,
who has taken a more provisional pose on the sofa. "Mrs. Roberts,
you're the only woman in Boston who could hope to get people, with a
fireside of their own--or a register--out to a Christmas dinner. You
know I still wonder at your effrontery a little?"
MRS. ROBERTS, laughing: "I knew I should catch you if I baited my
hook with your old friend."
LAWTON: "Yes, nothing would have kept me away when I heard Bemis was
coming. But he doesn't seem so inflexible in regard to me. Where is
he?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "I'm sure I don't know. I'd no idea I was giving such
a formal dinner. But everybody, beginning with my own aunt, seems to
think it a ceremonious occasion. There are only to be twelve. Do
you know the Millers?"
LAWTON: "No, thank goodness! One meets some people so often that
one fancies one's weariness of them reflected in their sympathetic
countenances. Who are these acceptably novel Millers?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "Do explain the Millers to the doctor, Edward."
ROBERTS, standing on the hearth-rug, with his thumbs in his waistcoat
pockets: "They board."
LAWTON: "Genus. That accounts for their willingness to flutter
round your evening lamp when they ought to be singeing their wings at
their own. Well, species?"
ROBERTS: "They're very nice young newly married people. He's
something or other of some kind of manufactures. And Mrs. Miller is
disposed to think that all the other ladies are as fond of him as she
is."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Oh! That is not so, Edward."
LAWTON: "You defend your sex, as women always do. But you'll admit
that, as your friend, Mrs. Miller may have this foible."
MRS. ROBERTS: "I admit nothing of the kind. And we've invited
another young couple who haven't gone to housekeeping yet--the
Curwens. And HE has the same foible as Mrs. Miller." MRS. ROBERTS
takes out her handkerchief, and laughs into it.
LAWTON: "That is, if Mrs. Miller has it, which we both deny. Let us
hope that Mrs. Miller and Mr. Curwen may not get to making eyes at
each other."
ROBERTS: "And Mr. Bemis and his son complete the list. Why, Agnes,
there are only ten. You said there were twelve."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Well, never mind. I meant ten. I forgot that the
Somerses declined." A ring is heard. "Ah! THAT'S Aunt Mary." She
runs into the vestibule, and is heard exclaiming without: "Why, Mrs.
Miller, is it you? I thought it was my aunt. Where is Mr. Miller?"
MRS. MILLER, entering the drawing-room arm in arm with her hostess:
"Oh, he'll be here directly. I had to let him run back for my fan."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Well, we're very glad to have you to begin with. Let
me introduce Dr. Lawton."
MRS. MILLER, in a polite murmur: "Dr. Lawton." In a louder tone:
"O Mr. Roberts!"
LAWTON: "You see, Roberts? The same aggrieved surprise at meeting
you here that I felt."
MRS. MILLER: "What in the world do you mean?"
LAWTON: "Don't you think that when a husband is present at his
wife's dinner party he repeats the mortifying superfluity of a
bridegroom at a wedding?"
MRS. MILLER: "I'm SURE I don't know what you mean. I should never
think of giving a dinner without Mr. Miller."
LAWTON: "No?" A ring is heard. "There's Bemis."
MRS. MILLER: "It's Mr. Miller."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Aunt Mary at last!" As she bustles toward the door:
"Edward, there are twelve--Aunt Mary and Willis."
ROBERTS: "Oh, yes. I totally forgot Willis."
LAWTON: "Who's Willis?"
ROBERTS: "Willis? Oh, Willis is my wife's brother. We always have
him."
LAWTON: "Oh, yes, Campbell."
MRS. ROBERTS, without: "Mr. Bemis! So kind of you to come on
Christmas."
MR. BEMIS, without: "So kind of you to ask us houseless strangers."
MRS. ROBERTS, without: "I ran out here, thinking it was my aunt.
She's played us a trick, and hasn't come yet."
BEMIS, entering the drawing-room with Mrs. Roberts: "I hope she
won't fail altogether. I haven't met her for twenty years, and I
counted so much upon the pleasure--Hello, Lawton!"
LAWTON: "Hullo, old fellow!" They fly at each other, and shake
hands. "Glad to see you again.
BEMIS, reaching his left hand to MR. ROBERTS, while MR. LAWTON keeps
his right: "Ah! Mr. Roberts."
LAWTON: "Oh, never mind HIM. He's merely the husband of the
hostess."
MRS. MILLER, to ROBERTS: "What DOES he mean?"
ROBERTS: "Oh, nothing. Merely a joke he's experimenting with."
LAWTON to BEMIS: "Where's your boy?"
BEMIS: "He'll be here directly. He preferred to walk. Where's your
girl?"
LAWTON: "Oh, she'll come by and by. She preferred to drive."
MRS. ROBERTS, introducing them: "Mr. Bemis, have you met Mrs.
Miller?" She drifts away again, manifestly too uneasy to resume even
a provisional pose on the sofa, and walks detachedly about the room.
BEMIS: "What a lovely apartment Mrs. Roberts has."
MRS. MILLER: "Exquisite! But then she has such perfect taste."
BEMIS, to MRS. ROBERTS, who drifts near them: "We were talking about
your apartment, Mrs. Roberts. It's charming."
MRS. ROBERTS: "It IS nice. It's the ideal way of living. All on
one floor. No stairs. Nothing."
BEMIS: "Yes, when once you get here! But that little matter of five
pair up" -
MRS. ROBERTS: "You don't mean to say you WALKED up! Why in the
world didn't you take the elevator?"
BEMIS: "I didn't know you had one."
MRS. ROBERTS: "It's the only thing that makes life worth living in a
flat. All these apartment hotels have them."
BEMIS: "Bless me! Well, you see, I've been away from Boston so
long, and am back so short a time, that I can't realize your luxuries
and conveniences. In Florence we ALWAYS walk up. They have
ascenseurs in a few great hotels, and they brag of it in immense
signs on the sides of the building."
LAWTON: "What pastoral simplicity! We are elevated here to a degree
that you can't conceive of, gentle shepherd. Has yours got an air-
cushion, Mrs. Roberts?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "An air-cushion? What's that?"
LAWTON: "The only thing that makes your life worth a moment's
purchase in an elevator. You get in with a glass of water, a basket
of eggs, and a file of the 'Daily Advertiser.' They cut the elevator
loose at the top, and you drop."
BOTH LADIES: "Oh!"
LAWTON: "In three seconds you arrive at the ground-floor, reading
your file of the 'Daily Advertiser;' not an egg broken nor a drop
spilled. I saw it done in a New York hotel. The air is compressed
under the elevator, and acts as a sort of ethereal buffer."
MRS. ROBERTS: "And why don't we always go down in that way?"
LAWTON: "Because sometimes the walls of the elevator shaft give
out."
MRS. ROBERTS: "And what then?"
LAWTON: "Then the elevator stops more abruptly. I had a friend who
tried it when this happened."
MRS. ROBERTS: "And what did he do?"
LAWTON: "Stepped out of the elevator; laughed; cried; went home; got
into bed: and did not get up for six weeks. Nervous shock. He was
fortunate."
MRS. MILLER: "I shouldn't think you'd want an air-cushion on YOUR
elevator, Mrs. Roberts."
MRS. ROBERTS: "No, indeed! Horrid!" The bell rings. "Edward, YOU
go and see if that's Aunt Mary."
MRS. MILLER: "It's Mr. Miller, I know."
BEMIS: "Or my son."
LAWTON: "My voice is for Mrs. Roberts's brother. I've given up all
hopes of my daughter."
ROBERTS, without: "Oh, Curwen! Glad to see you! Thought you were
my wife's aunt."
LAWTON, at a suppressed sigh from MRS. ROBERTS: "It's one of his
jokes, Mrs. Roberts. Of course it's your aunt."
MRS. ROBERTS, through her set teeth, smilingly: "Oh, if it IS, I'll
make him suffer for it."
MR. CURWEN, without: "No, I hated to wait, so I walked up."
LAWTON: "It is Mr. Curwen, after all, Mrs. Roberts. Now let me see
how a lady transmutes a frown of threatened vengeance into a smile of
society welcome."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Well, look!" To MR. CURWEN, who enters, followed by
her husband: "Ah, Mr. Curwen! So glad to see you. You know all our
friends here--Mrs. Miller, Dr. Lawton, and Mr. Bemis?"
CURWEN, smiling and bowing, and shaking hands right and left: "Very
glad--very happy--pleased to know you."
MRS. ROBERTS, behind her fan to Dr. Lawton: "Didn't I do it
beautifully?"
LAWTON, behind his hand: "Wonderfully! And so unconscious of the
fact that he hasn't his wife with him."
MRS. ROBERTS, in great astonishment, to Mr. Curwen: "Where in the
world is Mrs. Curwen?"
CURWEN: "Oh--oh--she'll be here. I thought she was here. She
started from home with two right-hand gloves, and I had to go back
for a left, and I--I suppose--Good heavens!" pulling the glove out
of his pocket. "I ought to have sent it to her in the ladies'
dressing-room." He remains with the glove held up before him, in
spectacular stupefaction.
LAWTON: "Only imagine what Mrs. Curwen would be saying of you if she
were in the dressing-room."
ROBERTS: "Mr. Curwen felt so sure she was there that he wouldn't
wait to take the elevator, and walked up." Another ring is heard.
"Shall I go and meet your aunt NOW, my dear?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "No, indeed! She may come in now with all the
formality she chooses, and I will receive her excuses in state." She
waves her fan softly to and fro, concealing a murmur of trepidation
under an indignant air, till the portiere opens, and MR. WILLIS
CAMPBELL enters. Then MRS. ROBERTS breaks in nervous agitation "Why,
Willis! Where's Aunt Mary?"
MRS. MILLER: "And Mr. Miller?"
CURWEN: "And Mrs. Curwen?"
LAWTON: "And my daughter?"
BEMIS: "And my son?"
MR. CAMPBELL, looking tranquilly round on the faces of his
interrogators: "Is it a conundrum?"
MRS. ROBERTS, mingling a real distress with an effort of mock-heroic
solemnity: "It is a tragedy! O Willis dear! it's what you see--what
you hear; a niece without an aunt, a wife without a husband, a father
without a son, and another father without a daughter."
ROBERTS: "And a dinner getting cold, and a cook getting hot."
LAWTON: "And you are expected to account for the whole situation."
CAMPBELL: "Oh, I understand! I don't know what your little game is,
Agnes, but I can wait and see. I'M not hungry."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Willis, do you think I would try and play a trick on
you, if I could?"
CAMPBELL: "I think you can't. Come, now, Agnes! It's a failure.
Own up, and bring the rest of the company out of the next room. I
suppose almost anything is allowable at this festive season, but this
is pretty feeble."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Indeed, indeed, they are not there."
CAMPBELL: "Where are they, then?"
ALL: "That's what we don't know."
CAMPBELL: "Oh, come, now! that's a little too thin. You don't know
where ANY of all these blood-relations and connections by marriage
are? Well, search me!"
MRS. ROBERTS, in open distress: "Oh, I'm sure something must have
happened to Aunt Mary!"
MRS. MILLER: "I can't understand what Ellery C. Miller means."
LAWTON, with a simulated sternness: "I hope you haven't let that son
of yours run away with my daughter, Bemis?"
BEMIS: "I'm afraid he's come to a pass where he wouldn't ask MY
leave."
CURWEN, re-assuring himself: "Ah, she's all right, of course. I
know that" -
BEMIS: "Miss Lawton?"
CURWEN: "No, no--Mrs. Curwen."
CAMPBELL: "Is it a true bill, Agnes?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "Indeed it is, Willis. We've been expecting her for
an hour--of course she always comes early--and I'm afraid she's been
taken ill suddenly."
ROBERTS: "Oh, I don't think it's that, my dear."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Oh, of course you never think anything's wrong,
Edward. My whole family might die, and"--MRS. ROBERTS restrains
herself, and turns to MR. CAMPBELL, with hysterical cheerfulness:
"Who came up in the elevator with you?"
CAMPBELL: "Me? _I_ didn't come in the elevator. I had my usual
luck. The elevator was up somewhere, and after I'd pressed the
annunciator button till my thumb ached, I watched my chance and
walked up."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Where was the janitor?"
CAMPBELL: "Where the janitor always is--nowhere."
LAWTON: "Eating his Christmas dinner, probably."
MRS. ROBERTS, partially abandoning and then recovering herself:
"Yes, it's perfectly spoiled! Well, friends, I think we'd better go
to dinner--that's the only way to bring them. I'll go out and
interview the cook." Sotto voce to her husband: "If I don't go
somewhere and have a cry, I shall break down here before everybody.
Did you ever know anything so strange? It's perfectly--pokerish."
LAWTON: "Yes, there's nothing like serving dinner to bring the
belated guest. It's as infallible as going without an umbrella when
it won't rain."
CAMPBELL: "No, no! Wait a minute, Roberts. You might sit down
without one guest, but you can't sit down without five. It's the old
joke about the part of Hamlet. I'll just step round to Aunt Mary's
house--why, I'll be back in three minutes."
MRS. ROBERTS, with perfervid gratitude: "Oh, how GOOD you are,
Willis! You don't know how MUCH you're doing! What presence of mind
you have! Why couldn't we have thought of sending for her? O
Willis, I can never be grateful enough to you! But you always think
of everything."
ROBERTS: "I accept my punishment meekly, Willis, since it's in your
honor."
LAWTON: "It's a simple and beautiful solution, Mrs. Roberts, as far
as your aunt's concerned; but I don't see how it helps the rest of
us."
MRS. MILLER to MR. CAMPBELL: "If you meet Mr. Miller " -
CURWEN: "Or my wife" -
BEMIS: "Or my son" -
LAWTON: "Or my daughter" -
CAMPBELL: "I'll tell them they've just one chance in a hundred to
save their lives, and that one is open to them for just five
minutes."
LAWTON: "Tell my daughter that I've been here half an hour, and
everybody knows I drove here with her."
BEMIS: "Tell my son that the next time I'll walk, and let him
drive."
MRS. MILLER: "Tell Mr. Miller I found I had my fan after all."
CURWEN: "And Mrs. Curwen that I've got her glove all right." He
holds it up.
MRS. ROBERTS, at a look of mystification and demand from her brother:
"Never mind explanations, Willis. They'll understand, and we'll
explain when you get back."
LAWTON, examining the glove which CURWEN holds up: "Why, so it IS
right!"
CURWEN: "What do you mean?"
LAWTON: "Were you sent back to get a LEFT glove?"
CURWEN: "Yes, yes; of course."
LAWTON: "Well, if you'll notice, this is a right one. The one at
home is left."
CURWEN, staring helplessly at it: "Gracious Powers! what shall I
do?"
LAWTON: "Pray that Mrs. Curwen may NEVER come."
MR. CURWEN, dashing through the door: "I'll be back by the time Mr.
Campbell returns."
MRS. MILLER, with tokens of breaking down visible to MRS. ROBERTS:
"I wonder what could have kept Mr. Miller. It's so very mysterious,
I" -
MRS. ROBERTS, suddenly seizing her by the arm, and hurrying her from
the room: "Now, Mrs. Miller, you've just got time to see my baby."
MR. ROBERTS, winking at his remaining guests: "A little cry will do
them good. I saw as soon as Willis came in instead of her aunt, that
my wife couldn't get through without it. They'll come back as bright
as" -
LAWTON: "Bemis, should you mind a bereaved father falling upon your
neck?"
BEMIS: "Yes, Lawton, I think I should."
LAWTON: "Well, it IS rather odd about all those people. You can say
of one or two that they've been delayed, but five people can't have
been delayed. It's too much. It amounts to a coincidence. Hello!
What's that?"
ROBERTS: "What's what?"
LAWTON: "I thought I heard a cry."
ROBERTS: "Very likely you did. They profess to deaden these floors
so that you can't hear from one apartment to another. But I know
pretty well when my neighbor overhead is trying to wheel his baby to
sleep in a perambulator at three o'clock in the morning; and I guess
our young lady lets the people below understand when she's wakeful.
But it's the only way to live, after all. I wouldn't go back to the
old up-and-down-stairs, house-in-a-block system on any account. Here
we all live on the ground-floor practically. The elevator equalizes
everything."
BEMIS: "Yes, when it happens to be where you are. I believe I
prefer the good old Florentine fashion of walking upstairs, after
all."
LAWTON: "Roberts, I DID hear something. Hark! It sounded like a
cry for help. There!"
ROBERTS: "You're nervous, doctor. It's nothing. However, it's easy
enough to go out and see." He goes out to the door of the apartment,
and immediately returns. He beckons to DR. LAWTON and MR. BEMIS,
with a mysterious whisper: "Come here both of you. Don't alarm the
ladies."
II.
In the interior of the elevator are seated MRS. ROBERTS'S AUNT MARY
(MRS. CRASHAW), MRS. CURWEN, and MISS LAWTON; MR. MILLER and MR.
ALFRED BEMIS are standing with their hats in their hands. They are
in dinner costume, with their overcoats on their arms, and the
ladies' draperies and ribbons show from under their outer wraps,
where they are caught up, and held with that caution which
characterizes ladies in sitting attitudes which they have not been
able to choose deliberately. As they talk together, the elevator
rises very slowly, and they continue talking for some time before
they observe that it has stopped.
MRS. CRASHAW: "It's very fortunate that we are all here together. I
ought to have been here half an hour ago, but I was kept at home by
an accident to my finery, and before I could be put in repair I heard
it striking the quarter past. I don't know what my niece will say to
me. I hope you good people will all stand by me if she should be
violent."
MILLER: "In what a poor man may with his wife's fan, you shall
command me, Mrs. Crashaw." He takes the fan out, and unfurls it.
MRS. CRASHAW: "Did she send you back for it?"
MILLER: "I shouldn't have had the pleasure of arriving with you if
she hadn't."
MRS. CRASHAW, laughing, to MRS. CURWEN: "What did you send YOURS
back for, my dear?"
MRS. CURWEN, thrusting out one hand gloved, and the other ungloved:
"I didn't want two rights."
YOUNG MR. BEMIS: "Not even women's rights?"
MRS. CURWEN: "Oh, so young and so depraved! Are all the young men
in Florence so bad?" Surveying her extended arms, which she turns
over: "I don't know that I need have sent him for the other glove.
I could have explained to Mrs. Roberts. Perhaps she would have
forgiven my coming in one glove."
MILLER, looking down at the pretty arms: "If she had seen you
without."
MRS. CURWEN: "Oh, you were looking!" She rapidly involves her arms
in her wrap. Then she suddenly unwraps them, and regards them
thoughtfully. "What if he should bring a ten-button instead of an
eight! And he's quite capable of doing it."
MILLER: "Are there such things as ten-button gloves?"
MRS. CURWEN: "You would think there were ten-thousand button gloves
if you had them to button."
MILLER: "It would depend upon whom I had to button them for."
MRS. CURWEN: "For Mrs. Miller, for example."
MRS. CRASHAW: "We women are too bad, always sending people back for
something. It's well the men don't know HOW bad."
MRS. CURWEN: "'Sh! Mr. Miller is listening. And he thought we were
perfect. He asks nothing better than to be sent back for his wife's
fan. And he doesn't say anything even under his breath when she
finds she's forgotten it, and begins, 'Oh, dearest, my fan'--Mr.
Curwen does. But he goes all the same. I hope you have your father
in good training, Miss Lawton. You must commence with your father,
if you expect your husband to be 'good.'"
MISS LAWTON: "Then mine will never behave, for papa is perfectly
incorrigible."
MRS. CURWEN: "I'm sorry to hear such a bad report of him. Shouldn't
YOU think he would be 'good,' Mr. Bemis?"
YOUNG MR. BEMIS: "I should think he would try."
MRS. CURWEN: "A diplomat, as well as a punster already! I must warn
Miss Lawton."
MRS. CRASHAW, interposing to spare the young people: "What an
amusing thing elevator etiquette is! Why should the gentlemen take
their hats off? Why don't you take your hats off in a horse-car?"
MILLER: "The theory is that the elevator is a room."
YOUNG MR. BEMIS: "We were at a hotel in London where they called it
the Ascending Room."
MISS LAWTON: "Oh, how amusing!"
MILLER, looking about: "This is a regular drawing-room for size and
luxury. They're usually such cribs in these hotels."
MRS. CRASHAW: "Yes, it's very nice, though I say it that shouldn't
of my niece's elevator. The worst about it is, it's so slow."
MILLER: "Let's hope it's sure."
YOUNG MR. BEMIS: "Some of these elevators in America go up like
express trains."
MRS. CURWEN, drawing her shawl about her shoulders, as if to be ready
to step out: "Well, I never get into one without taking my life in
my hand, and my heart in my mouth. I suppose every one really
expects an elevator to drop with them, some day, just as everybody
really expects to see a ghost some time."
MRS. CRASHAW: "Oh, my dear! what an extremely disagreeable subject
of conversation."
MRS. CURWEN: "I can't help it, Mrs. Crashaw. When I reflect that
there are two thousand elevators in Boston, and that the inspectors
have just pronounced a hundred and seventy of them unsafe, I'm so
desperate when I get into one that I could--flirt!"