"Odds," replied the clerk. "Odds. No ends to speak of but plenty of odds."
He half led, half pushed Lampley out of the elevator. They were in a great chamber, so far stretching that though it was adequately lit the defining walls were lost, far, far off. So close to each other that they almost touched, grand pianos with their lids thrown back and strings exposed, stood, rank after rank. From the ceiling long stalactites dripped on the pianos: plink plink, plink plink, plink plunk! A thousand pianotuners might have been at work simultaneously.
"Nobody here," said the clerk. "All right." He turned swiftly back into the elevator, slamming the door.
"Wait!" cried Lampley in panic. "Wait for me." He heard the softly whirring mechanism as the elevator started, leaving him alone.
Lampley pounded the door with his fists. He shouted for the clerk to come back, not to desert him. He kicked the door. He screamed. Plink plink, plink plink, plink plunk.
He could die down here. He could die down here and no one would ever know it. He dared not go away from the elevator shaft—he might never find it again. He dared not stay—the clerk might not return until he was dead and the flesh rotted from his skeleton.
Plink plink. No, long before he died he would be raving mad. Plink plink. "Give us a tune at least," he pleaded. His voice produced no echo. No echo at all. Plink plunk.
Calm, almost ease, succeeded panic. He walked between the rows of pianos. They could not stretch to infinity, he reasoned, there must be an end to them somewhere. But reason also argued the pianos couldn't be here at all, there couldn't be seven or seventeen or seventy sub-basements beneath the hotel. Once an impossibility happened there was no limit to the impossibilities to follow.
He had been six when Miss Brewster came to give him piano lessons. And is this our little Paderooski she asked so brightly. Do-do. C natural. Treble clef, bass clef. Above the staff, below the staff. She smacked his hands when Mother wasn't looking. He kicked Miss Brewster's shins. After a while the lessons stopped.