nor a screw that is riot in my
keeping. Here's my hammer to ring them true and my spanner to wrench
them tight. As the Lord over the earth, so am I--even I--over the
Tower, with power of life and power of death, aye of death and of life."

The hydraulic machinery had begun to work and the lift very slowly
ascended. As it mounted, the glorious panorama of the coast and bay
gradually unfolded itself. So engrossing was the view that the
passengers hardly noticed it when the platform stopped abruptly between
stages at the five hundred foot level. Barnes, the workman, muttered
that something must be amiss, and springing like a cat across the gap
which separated them from the trellis-work of metal he clambered out of
sight. The motley little party, suspended in mid-air, lost something of
their British shyness under such unwonted conditions and began to
compare notes with each other. One couple, who addressed each other as
Dolly and Billy, announced to the company that they were the particular
stars of the Hippodrome bill, and kept their neighbours tittering with
their rather obvious wit. A buxom mother, her precocious son, and two
married couples upon holiday formed an appreciative audience.

"You'd like to be a sailor, would you?" said Billy the comedian, in
answer to some remark of the boy. "Look 'ere, my nipper, you'll end up
as a blooming corpse if you ain't careful. See 'im standin' at the edge.
At this hour of the morning I can't bear to watch it."

"What's the hour got to do with it?" asked a stout commercial traveller.

"My nerves are worth nothin' before midday. Why, lookin' down there, and
seem' those folks like dots, puts me all in a twitter. My family is all
alike in the mornin'."

"I expect," said Dolly, a high-coloured young woman, "that they're all
alike the evening before."

There was a general laugh, which was led by the comedian.

"You got it across that time, Dolly. It's K.O. for Battling Billy--still
senseless when last heard of. If my family is laughed at I'll leave the
room."

"It's about time we did," said the commercial traveller, who was a
red-faced, choleric person. "It's a disgrace the way they hold us up.
I'll write to the company."

"Where's the bell-push?" said Billy. "I'm goin' to ring."

"What for--the waiter?" asked the lady.

"For the conductor, the chauffeur, whoever it is that drives the old bus
up and down. Have they run out of petrol, or broke the mainspring, or
what?"

"W