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.
It wasn't only the steam and their clothes being hidden; it had started
with the scare at the spring in the morning, and when they had told him
what they thought about that, they went back still further and bellowed
about the mismanagement of the place ever since he had taken charge, and
the food, and the steam-heat, and the new rules--oh, they hated him all
right, and they told him so, purple-faced with rage and heat, dancing
around him and shaking one fist in his face, as I say, while they held
their sheets fast with the other.
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