here! PLEASE don't, you will break yourself somewhere!" Mrs. Ellis
shrieked this; but the shrieks turned to a murmur of admiration as a
huge carved sideboard came bobbing and wobbling, like an intoxicated
piece of furniture in a haunted house, toward the two gentlewomen.
Immediately, a short but powerfully built man, whose red face beamed
above his dusty shoulders like a full moon with a mustache, emerged, and
waved his hand at the sideboard.

"I could tackle the two of them, begging your pardon, ladies."

"That's Cardigan," explained Harry, "Miss Armorer may have told you
about him. Oh, SHUEY!"

Cardigan approached and was presented. He brought both his heels
together and bowed solemnly, bending his head at the same time.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," said Shuey. Then he assumed an attitude of
military attention.

"Take us up in the elevator, will you, Shuey?" said Harry. "Step in, Mr.
Armorer, please, we will go and see the reproductions of the antique; we
have a room upstairs."

Mr. Armorer stepped in, Shuey following; and then, before Harry could
enter it, the elevator shot upward and--stuck!

"What's the matter?" cried Armorer.

Shuey was tugging at the wire rope. He called, in tones that seemed to
come from a panting chest: "Take a pull at it yourself, sir! Can you
move it?"

Armorer grasped the rope viciously; Shuey was on the seat pulling from
above. "We're stuck, sir, fast!"

"Can't you get down either?"

"Divil a bit, saving your presence, sir. Do ye think like the
water-works could be busted?"

"Can't you make somebody hear?" panted Armorer.

"Well, you see there's a deal of noise of the machinery," said Shuey,
scratching his chin with a thoughtful air, "and they expect we've gone
up!"

"Best try, anyhow. This infernal machine may take a notion to drop!"
said Armorer.

"And that's true, too," acquiesced Shuey. Forthwith he did lift up his
voice in a loud wailing: "OH--H, Jimmy! OH--H, Jimmy Ryan!"

Jimmy might have been in Chicago for any response he made; though
Armorer shouted with Shuey; and at every pause the whir of the machinery
mocked the shouters. Indescribable moans and gurgles, with a continuous
malignant hiss, floated up to them from the rebel steam below, as from
a volcano considering eruption. "They'll be bound to need the elevator
some time, if they don't need US, and that's one comfort!" said Shuey,
philosophically.

"Don't you think if we pulled on her we could get her u