Arthur led the way to the flat-topped desk in the middle of the room.

“Let’s settle a few of the more important matters,” he said in a businesslike tone.  “None of us has any authority to act for the rest of the people in the tower, but so many of us are in a state of blue funk that those who are here must have charge for a while.  Anybody any suggestions?”

“Housing,” answered Van Deventer promptly.  “I suggest that we draft a gang of men to haul all the upholstered settees and rugs that are to be found to one floor, for the women to sleep on.”

“M—­m.  Yes.  That’s a good idea.  Anybody a better plan?”

No one spoke.  They all still looked much too homesick to take any great interest in anything, but they began to listen more or less half-heartedly.

“I’ve been thinking about coal,” said Arthur.  “There’s undoubtedly a supply in the basement, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be well to cut the lights off most of the floors, only lighting up the ones we’re using.”

“That might be a good idea later,” Estelle said quietly, “but light is cheering, somehow, and every one feels so blue that I wouldn’t do it to-night.  To-morrow they’ll begin to get up their resolution again, and you can ask them to do things.”

“If we’re going to starve to death,” one of the other men said gloomily, “we might as well have plenty of light to do it by.”

“We aren’t going to starve to death,” retorted Arthur sharply.  “Just before I came down I saw a great cloud of birds, greater than I had ever seen before.  When we get at those birds—­”

“When,” echoed the gloomy one.

“They were pigeons,” Estelle explained.  “They shouldn’t be hard to snare or trap.”

“I usually have my dinner before now,” the gloomy one protested, “and I’m told I won’t get anything to-night.”

The other men began to straighten their shoulders.  The peevishness of one of their number seemed to bring out their latent courage.

“Well, we’ve got to stand it for the present,” one of them said almost philosophically.  “What I’m most anxious about is getting back.  Have we any chance?”

Arthur nodded emphatically.

“I think so.  I have a sort of idea as to the cause of our sinking into the Fourth Dimension, and when that is verified, a corrective can be looked for and applied.”

“How long will that take?”

“Can’t say,” Arthur replied frankly.  “I don’t know what tools, what materials, or what workmen we have, and what’s rather more to the point, I don’t even know what work will have to be done.  The pressing problem is food.”

“Oh, bother the food,” some one protested impatiently.  “I don’t care about myself.  I can go hungry to-night.  I want to get back to my family.”

“That’s all that really matters,” a chorus of voices echoed.

“We’d better not bother about anything else unless we find we can’t get back.  Concentrate on getting back,” one man stated more explicitly.