, stewing, exuding in the hot rooms of the bath
department--all of them, every one of them! In the hold and the hatches
down!"

He picked up the pail and went down the steps to the spring.

"After all," he said, "it won't hurt to take out a little of this and
pour it on the ground. It ought to be good fertilizer." He stooped.
"'Come, gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come,'" he quoted, and dipped
in the pail.

Just then somebody fell against the door and stumbled into the room. It
was Tillie, as white as milk, and breathing in gasps.

"Quick!" she screeched, "Minnie, quick!"

"What is it?" I asked, jumping up. She'd fallen back against the
door-frame and stood with her hand clutching her heart.

"That dev--devil--Mike!" she panted. "He has turned on the steam in the
men's baths and gone--gone away!"

"With people in the bath?" Doctor Barnes asked, slamming down the pail.

Tillie nodded.

"Then why in creation don't they get out of the baths until we can shut
off the steam?" I demanded, grabbing up my shawl. But Tillie shook her
head in despair.

"They can't," she answered, "he's hid their clothes!"

The next thing I recall is running like mad up the walk with Doctor
Barnes beside me, steadying me by the arm. I only spoke once that I
remember and that was just as we got to the house,

"This settles it!" I panted, desperately. "It's all over."

"Not a bit of it!" he said, shoving me up the steps and into the hall.
"The old teakettle is just getting 'het up' a bit. By the gods and
little fishes, just listen to it singing down there!"

The help was gathered in a crowd at the head of the bath-house
staircase, where a cloud of steam was coming up, and down below we could
hear furious talking, and somebody shouting, "Mike! Mike!" in a voice
that was choked with rage and steam.

Doctor Barnes elbowed his way through the crowd to the top of the stairs
and I followed.

"There's Minnie!" Amanda King yelled. "She knows all about the place.
Minnie, you can shut it off, can't you?"

"I'll try," I said, and was starting down, when Doctor Barnes jerked me
back.

"You stay here," he said. "Where's Mr. Pier--where's Carter?"

"Down with the engineer," somebody replied out of the steam cloud.

"Hello there!" he called down the staircase. "How's the air?"

"Clothes! Send us some clothes!"

It was Mr. Sam calling. The rest was swallowed up in a fresh roaring,
as if a steam-pipe had given away. That settled the