"Oh, exactly!... For one thing, I'd recommend a ventilator or two, shouldn't you?"
She felt just a little foolish. She also felt out of her element, incidental, irresponsible, and genuinely relieved. Still, through this jumble of feelings she had not forgotten that they were yet to see that part of the Works which she had specially come to peep at....
Progress upward was by means of a most primitive elevator, nothing but an open platform of bare boards, which Mr. MacQueen worked with one hand, and which interestingly pushed up the floor above as one ascended. As they rose by this quaint device, Carlisle said:
"Is this next the bunching-room, Mr. MacQueen?"
"It is, Miss."
"Bunching-room!" echoed Hugo, with satiric admiration. "You are an expert...."
The lift-shaft ran in one corner of the long building. Debarking on the third floor, the visitors had to step around a tall, shining machine, not to mention two workmen who had evidently just landed it. Several other machines stood loosely grouped here, all obviously new and not yet in place.
Hugo, pointing with his stick, observed: "Clearing in new floor-space, I see."
MacQueen nodded. "Knocked out a cloak-room. Our fight here's for space. Profits get smaller all the time...."
"H'm.... You figured the strain, I suppose. Your floor looks weak."