The patience of the wheel-man was overstrained. He had collected the price of admission, and if Jardine did not care to make the ascent no money would be refunded. He was now keen to sell the passage in the last remaining settee.
"Take your places, sir, and let these gentlemen come forward," he said peremptorily.
But Jardine still looked over his shoulder and said again to the young ladies, "Where is Frank?"
"'Where, oh, where is good old Francis?'" sang a wag in the group. "'Safe in the Promised Land.'"
There was a guffaw of appreciation from the bystanders and it ameliorated for the moment the temper of the crowd, which had shown a nettlesome rancour. It was still pressing forward, and a dirty, horny hand offered over Jardine's shoulder the money for the same seats. "There air fower o' we uns—ef he won't ride let we uns go up?"
"Why," exclaimed Jardine wonderingly, still looking over his shoulder expectantly, "Frank promised to get some cigarettes at the hotel and then overtake us."
"Take your places, sir," the ticket-seller insisted. "I can't keep the wheel standing still all night while you collect your party."
At that moment a call came from above, and all gazing up through the barely seen spokes and fellies of the great wheel to where the loftiest chariots seemed to swing vaguely among the stars and the swift scud of brown and white clouds, perceived how the oscillation was increased by the atmospheric disturbance. The pause, too, had grown monotonous, the air was becoming cold, and one of the passengers summoned the official below to continue the revolution and bring the descent into progress.
"Take your places, sir, or I will give them to the next comer," declared the custodian of the wheel.
There was a scuffle in the crowd for the first opportunity. Jardine, but for very shame, would have yielded the places and relinquished the money, yet he could not allow his escort of the ladies to this coveted pleasure terminate so disastrously. How inefficient, he reflected, how superannuated he must seem to them, how preposterously he had contrived to mismanage this humble little outing on which they had set their whimsical hearts. How cordially he would have welcomed an opportunity to slaughter with his own hands the marplot Frank! How willingly he would have deprived him of the pleasure of making the ascent in this choice company by leaving the recreant and proceeding at once.