Where There's a Will

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

It was Mr. Sam calling. The rest was swallowed up in a fresh roaring, as if a steam-pipe had given away. That settled the people below. With a burst of fury they swarmed up the stairs in their bath sheets, the bishop leading, and just behind him, talking as no gentleman should talk under any circumstances, Senator Biggs. The rest followed, their red faces shining through the steam—all of them murderous, holding their sheets around them with one hand, and waving the other in a frenzy. It was awful.

The help scattered and ran, but I stood my ground. The sight of a man in a sheet didn't scare me and it was no time for weakness.

The steam was thicker than ever, and the hall was misty. A moment later the engineer came up and after him Mr. Pierce, with a towel over his mouth and a screw-driver in his hand. He was white with rage. He brushed past the sheets without paying the slightest attention to them, and tore the towel off his mouth.

"Who saw Mike last?" he shouted across to where the pharmacy clerk, the elevator boy and some of the bell-boys had retreated to the office and were peeping out through the door.

Here Mr. Moody, who's small at any time, and who without the padding on his shoulders and wrapped in a sheet with his red face above, looked like a lighted cigarette, darted out of the crowd and caught him by the sleeve.

"Here!" he cried, "we've got a few things to say to you, you young—"

"Take your hand off my arm!" thundered Mr. Pierce.

The storm broke with that. They crowded around Mr. Pierce, yelling like maniacs, and he stood there, white-faced, and let them wear themselves out. The courage of a man in a den of lions was nothing to it. Doctor Barnes forced his way through the crowd and stood there beside him.

It wasn't only the steam and their clothes being hidden; it had started with the scare at the spring in the morning, and when they had told him what they thought about that, they went back still further and bellowed about the mismanagement of the place ever since he had taken charge, and the food, and the steam-heat, and the new rules—oh, they hated him all right, and they told him so, purple-faced with rage and heat, dancing around him and shaking one fist in his face, as I say, while they held their sheets fast with the other.

And I stood there and watched, my mind awhirl, expecting every minute to hear that they were all leaving, or to have some one forget and shake both fists at once.