“The very thing!” he repeated, glancing at Emanuel as if in expectation.

Emanuel did not seem to comprehend that aught was expected of him.  He amiably stood, with hands still appropriately gloved, and his kindly glance wandered between the ship and ocean and the spot which he had hit on for the ship and ocean’s last resting-place.

“Where’s the steps, Helen?” James inquired, and, after a brief silence:  “Georgiana!” he yelled.

The girl flew in.

“Bring us a pair o’ steps,” said he.

Followed an unsuccessful search for the pair of steps, which Andrew Dean ultimately discovered in a corner of the hall itself, lying flat behind a vast roll of carpet which was included in the goods purchased for seven thousand two hundred and fifty pounds.  The steps being found, Georgiana explained at length how she distinctly remembered seeing one of the men put them behind the roll of carpet.

“Now, what is it?” Andrew vigorously questioned.  He was prepared, evidently, to do anything that a man may do with a pair of steps.  When the operation was indicated to him, his first act was to take off his coat, which he threw on the floor.

“Hammer!  Nails!” he ejaculated.  And Georgiana, intimidated by his tone, contrived to find both hammer and nails.  It is true that the hammer was a coal hammer.

And in a remarkably short space of time he was balanced on the summit of the steps with a nail in one hand, a hammer in the other, a pencil behind his ear, and another nail in his mouth.  The other three encircled him from below, with upturned faces and open mouths, like young birds expecting food. (Not that young birds expecting food wear gloves so appropriate to the occasion as were Emanuel’s.) James Ollerenshaw was impressed by the workmanlike manner in which Andrew measured the width of the glass box and marked it off on the wall before beginning to knock nails.  The presence of one nail in Andrew’s mouth while he was knocking in the other with a coal hammer, prevented him from outraging the social code when the coal hammer embraced his fingers as well as the nail in the field of its activity.  Unhappily, when it came to the second nail, no such hindrance operated.

The nails, having been knocked in, were duly and satisfactorily tested.

Then solemnly James seized the glass box containing the ship and ocean, and bore it with all possible precautions to the pair of steps in front of the great doors.  Andrew descended two storeys, and, bending his body, received the box from James as a parson receives a baby at the font.  He then remounted.  The steps rocked.

“I’d happen better hold ’em,” said James.

“It’ll be all right,” said Andrew.

“I’ll hold them,” said Emanuel, hastening forward.

The precise cause of the accident will probably never be known, but no sooner did Emanuel lay his gloved hand on the steps than the whole edifice, consisting of steps, Andrew, and ship and ocean tottered and fell.