Page:C Q, or, In the Wireless House (Train, 1912).djvu/313

 bronze-gilt elevator half full of big hatted ladies, that shot him up swiftly into the regions of eternal peace, smelling of buttered toast and, He was evacuated into a dark hall at which a fluffy-haired girl sat at a small telephone desk and a couple of Corsican Brothers in fierce mustaches stood motionless in dress suits.

“Thees way, sair!” said on of them with a majestic wave of his hand.

Micky followed along miles and miles of highly polished hall to a mahogany door. His guide turned a handle that caused the feeble imitation of a decrepit alarm clock on the inside. The door was opened by Morley, the gray-haired valet of the Earl of Toppingham, who unemotionally took Micky’s cap and proceeded him to another door, knocked, and left him.

“Come in,” said the Hon. Miss Evelyn.

Micky felt the blood rush to his eyes and head. Suppose the Earl should be inside there, too. He felt himself choking.

“Don’t be a blooming ass!” he muttered and turned the handle.

It was a big room furnished severely but expensively, and there was no one there except a