“John Bennett?” He wrinkled his brow a little, as if trying to place so unimportant a person—“I think he works up above—top floor. Take the elevator.” He passed on, chuckling a little at the invasion of the sacred territory. “‘Nobody comes up here,’” he said mincingly, as he drew the ledger toward him and plunged into work, harrying to make ap lost time.
Tomlinson looked a little fearfully at the iron cage, plying up and down. He cast an eye about for the more friendly stairway. He was not afraid of any engine, however mighty and plunging, that held to solid earth, keeping its track with open sky; but these prisoned forces and office slaves, clacking back and forth in their narrow walls, and elevators knocking at a man’s stomach, were less to his mind. He climbed laboriously up the long stairs, flight after flight, his spent breath gasping at each turn. At the top floor he gazed around him, his mouth a little open.
“A queer place for the lad,” he said to himself, his faith in John oozing a little as he walked across and knocked at the door of the room.
There was a moment’s silence; then the scraping legs of a chair, and silence.
Tomlinson had raised his hand ready to rap again. The door receded before his knuckles....
It was the president of the road, himself, Simeon Tetlow—whom all men hated and feared—standing there grim and terrible.
Tomlinson’s nerveless hand rose to his hat.
“I’m wanting to ask you something, sir.”
The man surveyed him with a scowl. “Who told you to come up here?” he demanded.
“It were Johnny Bennett, sir.”