ere were indignant
tears in her eyes, which, I'll tell you in confidence, made a girl
named Nancy uncomfortable.

But the boy Nat; knowing that bell-boys have no rights, said nothing.
But he thought. He thought, Tom Dorgan, a lot of things and a long way
ahead.

The peppery old Major marched us all off to his private office.

Not much, girls, it hadn't come. For suddenly the annunciator rang out.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nat looked at the bell-boy's bench. It
was empty. There was to be a ball that night, and the bells 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 got down to the office again. So I
climbed those stairs, and every step I took my eye was searching for a
hiding-place. I could have pitched the little bag out of a window, but
Nancy Olden wasn't throwing diamonds to the birds, any more than Mag
here is likely to cut off the braids of red hair we used to play horse
with when we drove her about the Cruelty yard.

One flight.

No chance.

Another.

Everything bare as stone and soap could keep it.

The third flight--my knees began to tremble, and not with climbing.
The call came from this floor. But I ran up a fourth just on the
chance, and there in a corner was a fire hatchet strapped to the wall.
Behind that hatchet Mrs. Kingdon's diamonds might lie snug till
evening. I put the ends of my fingers