were going it over all the place.

"Number Twenty-one!" shouted the clerk at the desk.

But Number Twenty-one didn't budge. His heart was beating like a
hammer, and the ting--ng--ng of that bell calling him rang in his
head like a song.

"Number Twenty-one!" yelled the clerk.

Oh, he's got a devil of a temper, has that clerk. Some day, Tom,
when you love me very much, go up to the hotel and break his face
for me.

"You.--boy--confound you, can't you hear?" he shouted.

That time he caught the Major's ear--the one that wasn't deaf. He
looked from Powers' black face to the bench and then to me. And
all the time the bell kept ringing like mad.

"Git!" he said to the boy. "And come back in a hurry."

Number Twenty-one got--but leisurely. It wouldn't do for a
bell-boy to hurry, particularly when he had such good cause.

Oh, girls, those stone stairs, the servants' stairs at the St.
James! They're fierce. I tell you, Mag, scrubbing the floors at
the Cruelty ain't so bad. But this time I was jolly glad
bell-boys weren't allowed in the elevator. For there were those
diamonds in my pants pocket, and I must get rid of 'em before I