"Why, yes, Mr. Bannon," she said; "I'd like to go very much."
"All right," he replied, his smile returning. "I'll guarantee to get you up there somehow, if I have to build a stairway. Ninety feet's pretty high, you know."
When Bannon reached the elevator he stood for a moment in the well at the west end of the structure. This well, or "stairway bin," sixteen by thirty-two feet, and open from the ground to the distributing floor, occupied the space of two bins. It was here that the stairway would be, and the passenger elevator, and the rope-drive for the transmission of power from the working to the distributing floor. The stairway was barely indicated by rude landings. For the present a series of eight ladders zigzagged up from landing to landing. Bannon began climbing; halfway up he met Max, who was coming down, time book in hand.
"Look here, Max," he said, "we're going to have visitors this afternoon. If you've got a little extra time I'd like to have you help get things ready."
"All right," Max replied. "I'm not crowded very hard today."
"I've asked your sister to come up and see the framing."
Max glanced down between the loose boards on the landing.
"I don't know," he said slowly; "I don't believe she could climb up here very well."
"She won't have to. I'm going to put in a passenger elevator, and carry her up as grand as the Palmer House. You put in your odd minutes between now and three o'clock making a box that's big and strong enough."
Max grinned.