Another moment of joggling and bucking, and the elevator, as though too weary to continue its exertions, suddenly glided up and to a rest at the sixth floor.
“Whew! My eyes and whiskers!” exclaimed Tootles, springing out.
He turned with an air of grave solicitude.
“Sassafras, I do believe I forgot to pay the chauffeur. Small change, you know, is such a nuisance. I’m going to let you be my banker for a couple of days. Give him a liberal tip. And I say, when the florist comes in the morning with my boutonnière, attend to that, too, will you? Oh, yes, if Mrs. Van Astorbilt calls again this evening, tell her I have gone to the country—but discreetly, Sassafras, discreetly, in your best manner. Remember—she is a woman, like your mother.”
The sparkling elevator sagged out of sight, burying in the cavernous shaft the body-shaking peals of laughter, leaving O’Leary and Tootles moving down the spacious, murky corridor of the sixth floor back. There was a moment of silence, each rather watching the other out of the corner of his eye, and then Tootles heaved a prodigious sigh.
“Say, this is a hell of a place on Christmas eve, isn’t it?”
“Why, boy, I didn’t know it hit you that way,” said King O’Leary, surprised.
“It sure does. ‘Christmas comes but once a year, when it comes it brings good cheer!’ Yes, it does! Wish I could sleep it over. Ugh! Well, anyhow!”
He stopped at the door which bore the inscription:
No Models Wanted.