Encountering the landlady in the hall, he made the mistake of asking her if she had seen anything of Mr. Bannon that morning.  She had some elementary notions of strategy, derived, doubtless, from experience, and before beginning her reply, she blocked the narrow stairway with her broad person.  Then, beginning with a discussion of Mr. Bannon’s excellent moral character and his most imprudent habits, and illustrating by anecdotes of various other boarders she had had at one time and another, she led up to the statement that she had seen nothing of him since the night before, and that she had twice knocked at his door without getting any reply.

Max, who had laughed a little at Pete’s alarm, was now pretty well frightened himself, but at that instant they heard the thud of bare feet on the floor just above them.  “That’s him now,” said the landlady, thoughtlessly turning sideways, and Max bolted past her and up the stairs.

He knocked at the door and called out to know if he could come in.  The growl he heard in reply meant invitation as much as it meant anything, so he went in.  Bannon, already in his shirt and trousers, stood with his back to the door, his face in the washbowl.  As he scoured he sputtered.  Max could make little out of it, for Bannon’s face was under water half the time, but he caught such phrases as “Pete’s darned foolishness,” “College boy trick,” “Lie abed all the morning,” and “Better get an alarm clock”—­ which thing and the need for it Bannon greatly despised—­and he reached the conclusion that the matter was nothing more serious than that Bannon had overslept.

But the boss took it seriously enough.  Indeed, he seemed deeply humiliated, and he marched back to the elevator beside Max without saying a word until just as they were crossing the Belt Line tracks, when the explanation of the phenomenon came to him.

“I know where I get it from,” he exclaimed, as if in some measure relieved by the discovery.  “I must take after my uncle.  He was the greatest fellow to sleep you ever saw.”

So far as pace was concerned that day was like the others; while the men were human it could be no faster; with Bannon on the job it could not flag; but there was this difference, that today the stupidest sweepers knew that they had almost reached the end, and there was a rally like that which a runner makes at the beginning of the last hundred yards.

Late in the afternoon they had a broad hint of how near the end was.  The sweepers dropped their brooms and began carrying fire buckets full of water.  They placed one or more near every bearing all over the elevator.  The men who were quickest to understand explained to the slower ones what the precaution meant, and every man had his eye on the nearest pulley to see when it would begin to turn.

But Bannon was not going to begin till he was ready.  He had inspected the whole job four times since noon, but just after six he went all over it again, more carefully than before.  At the end he stepped out of the door at the bottom of the stairway bin, and pulled it shut after him.  It was not yet painted, and its blank surface suggested something.  He drew out his blue pencil and wrote on the upper panel:—­