“Come up into the cage, Sir John,” said Edward Henry.  “You’ll get a still better view.  Rather fine, isn’t it, even from here?”

He climbed up into the cage, and helped Sir John to climb.

And, standing there in the immediate silence, Sir John murmured with emotion: 

“We are alone with London!”

Edward Henry thought: 

“Cuckoo!”

They heard footsteps resounding on loose planks in a distant corner.

“Who’s there?” Edward Henry called.

“Only me!” replied a voice.  “Nobody takes any notice of me!”

“Who is it?” muttered Sir John.

“Alloyd, the architect,” Edward Henry answered, and then calling loud, “Come up here, Alloyd.”

The muffled and coated figure approached, hesitated, and then joined the other two in the cage.

“Let me introduce Mr. Alloyd, the architect—­Sir John Pilgrim,” said Edward Henry.

“Ah!” said Sir John, bending towards Alloyd.  “Are you the genius who draws those amusing little lines and scrawls on transparent paper, Mr. Alloyd?  Tell me, are they really necessary for a building, or do you only do them for your own fun?  Quite between ourselves, you know!  I’ve often wondered.”

Said Mr. Alloyd, with a pale smile: 

“Of course everyone looks on the architect as a joke!” The pause was somewhat difficult.

“You promised us rockets, Mr. Machin,” said Sir John.  “My mind yearns for rockets.”

“Right you are!” Edward Henry complied.  Close by, but somewhat above them, was the crane-engine, manned by an engineer whom Edward Henry was paying for overtime.  A signal was given, and the cage containing the proprietor and the architect of the theatre and Sir John Pilgrim bounded most startlingly up into the air.  Simultaneously it began to revolve rapidly on its cable, as such cages will, whether filled with bricks or with celebrities.

“Oh!” ejaculated Sir John, terror-struck, clinging hard to the side of the cage.

“Oh!” ejaculated Mr. Alloyd, also clinging hard.

“I want you to see London,” said Edward Henry, who had been through the experience before.

The wind blew cold above the chimneys.

The cage came to a standstill exactly at the peak of the other crane.  London lay beneath the trio.  The curves of Regent Street and of Shaftesbury Avenue, the right lines of Piccadilly, Lower Regent Street and Coventry Street, were displayed at their feet as on an illuminated map, over which crawled mannikins and toy-autobuses.  At their feet a long procession of automobiles were sliding off, one after another, with the guests of the evening.  The Metropolis stretched away, lifting to the north, and sinking to the south into the jewelled river on whose curved bank rose messages of light concerning whisky, tea and beer.  The peaceful nocturnal roar of the city, dwindling every moment now, reached them like an emanation from another world.