“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 people below.  With a burst of fury they swarmed up the stairs in their bath sheets, the bishop leading, and just behind him, talking as no gentleman should talk under any circumstances, Senator Biggs.  The rest followed, their red faces shining through the steam—­all of them murderous, holding their sheets around them with one hand, and waving the other in a frenzy.  It was awful.

The help scattered and ran, but I stood my ground.  The sight of a man in a sheet didn’t scare me and it was no time for weakness.

The steam was thicker than ever, and the hall was misty.  A moment later the engineer came up and after him Mr. Pierce, with a towel over his mouth and a screw-driver in his hand.  He was white with rage.  He brushed past the sheets without paying the slightest attention to them, and tore the towel off his mouth.

“Who saw Mike last?” he shouted across to where the pharmacy clerk, the elevator boy and some of the bell-boys had retreated to the office and were peeping out through the door.

Here Mr. Moody, who’s small at any time, and who without the padding on his shoulders and wrapped in a sheet with his red face above, looked like a lighted cigarette, darted out of the crowd and caught him by the sleeve.

“Here!” he cried, “we’ve got a few things to say to you, you young—­”

“Take your hand off my arm!” thundered Mr. Pierce.

The storm broke with that.  They crowded around Mr. Pierce, yelling like maniacs, and he stood there, white-faced, and let them wear themselves out.  The courage of a man in a den of lions was nothing to it.  Doctor Barnes forced his way through the crowd and stood there beside him.