“For pity’s sake help me!” It was his little voice beseeching. “Take me out of this!” He was so desperate that he had forgotten his usual correction of “Miferino.”
“Come out yourself.”
“I can’t. They are holding me by the leg.”
“Who are?”
“I don’t know who; please help me.”
I looked and saw my friend held by one foot caught in the spring of the box. It was not easy to get him out. His foot was broken, and when I put him on the table he limped.
“What were you doing in there?”
“That awful place,” he whined.
“But how did you get in there?”
“You left the door open and I wanted to see what it was like. I went in.... What a horrible place! Pitch dark, and every now and then a deafening noise and blinding flash, then grinding wheels. I had to look out or I should have been completely crushed. There wasn’t a safe corner. At last my foot was caught.”