When the lift-boy came down to the ground-floor again and threw open the door of the cage in which he spent so many mechanical hours every day, he became aware that the entrance hall was just then given up to a solitary female who was anxiously scanning the various names which appeared on the boards set up on either side. He gathered a general impression of rusticity, but, sharp as he was, would have found himself hard put to it to define it—the lady's bonnet was not appreciably different from the bonnets worn by respectable, middle-class, town ladies; the lady's umbrella was not carried at an awkward angle. Nevertheless he was quite certain that if the lady was going aloft to anywhere between there and the sixth floor she was about to step into an elevator for the first time.
He stood waiting, knowing very well that the stranger would presently address him. It was gloomy in the entrance hall, and he saw that she could not see the names on the top-half of the board at which she was gazing. She turned, glanced hastily at the opposite board, then looked half-doubtfully at him.
"Young man," she said, "can you tell me if Mr. Watkin Vavasower's office is anywhere about here?"
"Mr. Vavasore, mum?—third floor, mum—just gone up, has Mr. Vavasore," replied the lift-boy.
He stood aside from the door of his cage with an implied invitation to enter. But the lady, whom in the clearer light of the inner hall he now perceived to be middle-aged and of stern countenance, looked doubtfully at the stairs.
"I suppose I shall see the name on the door if I go up-stairs, young man?" she said. "It's that dark in these London places——"
"Step inside, mum," said the lift-boy.
The lady started and looked inside the cage as she might have looked inside one of her own hen-coops if she had suspected the presence of a fox therein. She turned a suspicious eye on the boy.
"Is it safe?" she said.
Then, instinctively obeying the authoritative wave of the official hand, she stepped inside and heard the gate bang. She gave a little gasp as the world fell from under her feet; another when the elevator suddenly stopped and she found herself ejected on a higher plane.