The Dumbwaiter Summary

Two men, Ben and Gus, are in a basement apartment. There is a seemingly inactive dumb waiter between their beds. Off one side there is a door to the kitchen and to the other side a door to the bathroom. Ben is reading a newspaper on his bed. Gus, who has difficulty lacing up his shoes, keeps taking them off, finding a matchbox in one shoe and an empty cigarette pack in the other. As he exits the room to the bathroom, Ben glares after him apparently very annoyed by the machinations with his shoes. Ben hears Gus try to flush the toilet but it fails to flush.

When Gus re-enters the room, Ben tells him about a news article in the paper describing how an eighty-seven-year-old man could not cross the road so he crawled under a lorry and was immediately killed. Gus returns...