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"The Marshall Cavis Corporation manages it," Chester said.

"Maude Cavis was engaged to Benton Towler," Mrs. Doubleday said.

"I don't expect they have much to do with it personally," Chester said. "I don't know, but it seems to me I heard they don't even live in New York."

"Thank you very much, Chester," Mrs. Bestwick said. "I just thought there might be a vacancy."

WHEN THE ALARM BEGAN ringing again, this time to signify that the tank on the roof was full, Chester lit out through the lobby and down the iron stairs and turned off the pump. Stanley, the handyman, was awake and moving around in his room by then, and Chester told him he thought the float switch on the roof that controlled the pump was broken and to keep an eye on the gauge. The day in the basement had begun. The milk and the newspapers had been delivered; Delaney, the porter, had emptied the waste cans in the back halls; and now the sleep-out cooks and maids were coming to work. Chester could hear them greeting Ferarri, the back-elevator man, and their clear "Good mornings" confirmed his feeling that the level of courtesy was a grade higher in the basement than in the lobby upstairs.

At a little before nine, Chester telephoned the office management. A secretary whose voice he did not recognize took the message. "The float switch on the water tank is busted," he told her, "and we're working the auxiliary manually now. You tell the maintenance crew to get over here this morning."

"The maintenance crew is at one of the other buildings," the unfamiliar voice said, "and we don't expect them back until four o'clock."

"This is an emergency, God damn it!" Chester shouted. "I got over two hundred bathrooms here. This building's just as important as those buildings over on Park Avenue. If my bathrooms run dry, you can come over here and take the complaints yourself. It's a moving day, and the handyman and me have got too much to do to be sitting beside the auxiliary all the time." His face got red. His voice echoed through the basement. When he hung up, he felt uncomfortable and his cigar burned his mouth. Then Ferarri came in with a piece of bad news. The Bestwicks' move would be delayed. They had arranged for a small moving company to move them to Pelham, and the truck had broken down in the night, bringing a load south from Boston.

Ferarri took Chester up to 9-E in the service car. One of the cheap, part-time maids that Mrs. Bestwick had been hiring recently had thumb-tacked a sign onto the back door. "To Whom It May Concern," she had printed. "I never play the numbers and I never will play the numbers and I never played the numbers." Chester put the sign in the waste can and rang the back bell. Mrs. Bestwick opened the door. She was holding a cracked cup full of coffee in one hand, and Chester noticed that her hand was trembling. "I'm terribly sorry about the moving truck, Chester," she said. "I don't quite know what to do. Everything's ready," she said, gesturing toward the china barrels that nearly filled the kitchen. She led Chester across the hall into the living room, where the walls, windows, and floors were bare. "Everything's ready," she repeated. "Mr. Bestwick has gone up to Pelham to wait for me. Mother took the children."

"I wish you'd asked my advice about moving companies," Chester said. "It isn't that I get a cut from them or anything, but I could have put you onto a reliable moving firm that wouldn't cost you any more than the one you got. People try to save money by getting cheap moving companies and in the end they don't save anything. Mrs. Negus—she's in 1-A—she wants to get her things in here this morning."

Mrs. Bestwick didn't answer. "Oh, I'll miss you, Mrs. Bestwick," Chester said, feeling that he might have spoken unkindly. "There's no question about that. I'll miss you and Mr. Bestwick and the girls. You've been good tenants. During the eight years you've been here, I don't believe there's been a complaint from any of you. But things are changing, Mrs. Bestwick. Something's happening. The high cost of