"I can't swallow it yet!" he groaned. "You feel ... uneasy ... in here, so you go out a window ninety-nine floors in the air—"
"Only twenty-four above the set-back, really," Lydman corrected him.
"It's enough, isn't it? So you go out, climb up to the helicopter roof, and then climb down again and back through the window! And you pretend to feel better. I would have had a heart attack!"
"Who wouldn't?" said Westervelt.
The mere conception of what it must have been like made him feel sick.
"As long as I know it's there," muttered Lydman. "As long as I know it's there. I can use that way any time. Just don't anybody pull that little ladder down."
"Would...?"
The meek little syllable came from Beryl, who had now managed to stand without the support of the partition.
Every head in the room swiveled to bear upon her. She gulped, and found part of her voice.
"Would there be an old martini lying around in the locker?" she asked. "I'm afraid to go for it myself because my knees feel as if they'll collapse at the first step."