One day in April when he had returned from lunch and a stroll in the environs of the Battery—returned to a list of securities and a strip from an adding machine, which he checked item by item—he was conscious of a stirring in his vicinity. A woman employee on the opposite side of a wire wicket was talking shrilly. A vice-president rose from his desk and hastened down the corridor, his usually composed face suddenly white and disconcerted. The tension was cumulative. Work stopped and clusters of people began to chatter. Hugo joined one of them.
"Yeah," a boy was saying, "it's happened before. A couple o' times."
"How do they know he's there?"
"They got a telephone goin' inside and they're talkin' to him."
"I'll be damned."
The boy nodded rapidly. "Yeah—some talk! Tellin' him what to try next."
"Poor devil!"
"What's the matter?" Hugo asked.
The boy was glad of a new and uninformed listener. "Aw, some dumb vault clerk got himself locked in, an' the locks jammed an' they can't get him out."
"Which vault? The big one?"