I don't concern myself with any other laboring men."Just then a murmur of exclamations came from Mrs. Ellis and Esther, whom the superintendent was piloting through the shops. "Oh, no, it is too heavy; oh, don't do it, Mr. Cardigan!" "Oh, we can see it perfectly well from 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 up to the next floor, by degrees? Now then!"Armorer gave a dash and Shuey let out his muscles in a giant tug.
The elevator responded by an astonishing leap that carried them past three or four floors!
"Stop her! stop her!" bawled Shuey; but in spite of Armorer's pulling himself purple in the face, the elevator did not stop until it bumped with a crash against the joists of the roof.
"Well, do you suppose we're stuck HERE?" growled Armorer.
"Well, sir, I'll try. Say, don't be exerting yourself violent.
It strikes me she's for all the world like the wimmen,--in exthremes, sir, in exthremes! And it wouldn't be noways so pleasant to go riproaring that gait down cellar!
Slow and easy, sir, let me manage her. Hi! she's working."In fact, by slow degrees and much puffing, Shuey got the erratic box to the next floor, where, disregarding Shuey's protestations that he could "make her mind,"Mr. Armorer got out, and they left the elevator to its fate.
It was a long way, through many rooms, downstairs. Shuey would have beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground.
Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door;and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room.
But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said the philosopher Shuey, "but being born that way it ain't to be expected otherwise!"He had the friendly ******* of his class in the West.
He praised Mrs. Ellis's gymnastics, and urged Armorer to stay over a morning train and see a "real pretty boxing match"between Mr. Lossing and himself.
"Oh, he boxes too, does he?" said Armorer.
"And why on earth would he groan-like?" wondered Shuey to himself.
"He does that, sir," he continued aloud; "didn't Mrs. Ellis ever tell you about the time at the circus? She was there herself, with three children she borrowed and an unreasonable gyurl, with a terrible big screech in her and no sense.
Yes, sir, Mr. Lossing he is mighty cliver with his hands!
There come a yell of 'Lion loose! lion loose!' at that circus, just as the folks was all crowding out at the end of it, and them that had gone into the menagerie tent came a-tumbling and howling back, and them that was in the circus tent waiting for the concert (which never ain't worth waiting for, between you and me!)was a-scrambling off them seats, ****** a noise like thunder;and all fighting and pushing and bellowing to get out!
I was there with my wife and ****** for the seats that the fools quit, so's to get under and crawl out under the canvas, when I see Mrs. Ellis holding two of the children, and that fool girl let the other go and I grabbed it. 'Oh, save the baby! save one, anyhow,' cries my wife--the woman is a tinder-hearted crechure!
And just then I seen an old lady tumble over on the benches, with her gray hair stringing out of her black bonnet.
The crowd was WILD, hitting and screaming and not caring for anything, and I see a big jack of a man come plunging down right spang on that old lady! His foot was right in the air over her face! Lord, it turned me sick. I yelled.
