The three filed forth.
“Down!”
He led the way down to the ground floor, while they followed him, mystified, and into the elevator again.
“Up two!” said Flick, with the gleam of a field-marshal in his eyes. “Out! Down!”
A third time they entered the elevator, mounted to the third floor and solemnly, like the King of France and all his men, descended three flights and again rose to the fourth. Again at the bottom, Flick condescended to explain:
“One flight at time—see? No strain. Always be kind to elevators—see? Coax elevators.”
“Absolutely,” said King O’Leary, with the dignity of an archbishop.
Tootles, inwardly convulsed, maintained a grave face, assuming the tense gravity of his two friends, mounting to the fifth floor and carefully descending the long stone flights, his hands on King O’Leary’s shoulders, whose hands in turn reposed on Flick’s scrawny back, which stiffened with the sense of responsibility of a chosen leader. They waited solemnly for Sassafras, standing in dusky line, for all the world like a vat, a walking-stick, and a peanut, until the elevator sank, gleaming, to the level. Then they entered, rose to the sixth floor, and congratulated Flick.
Back in the windy corridor, with two dusky spots of light overhead and empty milk-bottles before the doors, King O’Leary was seized with a new emotion, an overflowing love of mankind, and a longing to cheer blighted existences.
“Poor things,—poor miserable things!” he said, contemplating the row of shadowy doors. “No Christmas cheer.”