Part 8

"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 first in the little crack to make sure the little bag wouldn't drop to the floor, and then dived into my pocket and--

And there behind me, stealthily coming up the last turn of the stairs was Mr. George Moriway!

Don't you hate a soft-walking man, Mag? That cute fellow was cuter than the old Major himself, and had followed me every inch of the way.

"There's something loose with this hatchet, sir," I said, innocently looking down at him.

"Oh, there is? What an observing little fellow you are! Never mind the hatchet; just tell me what number you were sent to answer."

"Number?" I repeated, as though I couldn't see why he wanted to know. "Why--431."

"Not much, my boy--331."

"'Scuse me, sir, ain't you mistaken?"

He looked at me for full a minute. I stared him straight in the eye. A nasty eye he's got--black and bloodshot and cold and full of suspicion. But it wavered a bit at the end.

"I may be," he said slowly, "but not about the number. Just you turn around and get down to 331."

"All right, sir. Thank you very much. It might have got me in trouble. The ladies are so particular about having the bells answered quick--"

"I guess you'll get in trouble all right," he said and stood watching--from where he stood he could watch me every inch of the way--till I got to 331, at the end of the hall, Mrs. Kingdon's door.

And the goods still on me, Tom, mind that.

My, but Mrs. Kingdon was wrathy when she saw me!

"Why did they send you?" she cried. "Why did you keep me waiting so long? I want a chambermaid. I've rung a dozen times. The whole place is crazy about that old ball to-night, and no one can get decent attention."