by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XI A ROOM OF STRANGE MAGIC
"Say!" Felix exclaimed as they boarded a car bound for home. "Wonder howit happened that searchlight fellow was looking for us."
"Somebody told him," Johnny suggested.
"Yes, and I know who!" The young inventor's face fairly shone. "It wasBeth; couldn't have been anyone else. Fellow without a sister is justsquare out of luck, that's all. The way she gets me out of things! Say,man! It's great!"
A half hour later, over cups of steaming chocolate produced, as before,by the mysterious "Eye," Beth told her story.
"Gunderson Shotts," Felix murmured, examining the card Beth handed him."'Everybody's Business.' Suppose that means he tends to everybody'sbusiness?"
"Got quite a job on his hands," Johnny laughed.
"He's big enough to take a huge load of it on his shoulders." Beth wasstaring into space.
"Have to look him up and thank him," Felix drawled. Already the events ofthe day were fading from his memory. He was dreaming of some strange newcontraption that might startle the world.
"You'll stay with us tonight." Roused from his revery, he turned toJohnny.
"Why I--"
"Sure, sure you will. Show you the room right away. It's on the thirdfloor; a little strange, you may find it, but comfortable, extra fine,I'd say." Felix favored him with a smile.
The room they entered a few moments later was strange in two particulars.It was extremely tall. Johnny thought it must be fully twenty feet to theceiling. "Queer way to build a room," was his mental comment. Like otherrooms in the house, it was illuminated to the deepest corners; yet therewere no lamps anywhere. "Odd place, this," he thought. Yet Felix hadwarned him. He had been given ample opportunity to say, "I don't like thelooks of it." Now he shrugged his shoulders and asked no questions; thatwas Johnny's way.
"Light begins to fade in twenty minutes," was Felix's only comment as heleft the room.
"Light begins to fade," Johnny grinned when the door had been closed."Sure is a queer way to put it."
Twenty minutes later he began to realize that the strange boy had spokenthe exact truth. The light did begin to fade. At first the change wasalmost imperceptible, a mere deepening of shadows in remote corners.Then, little by little, the pictures that hung low on those tall wallsbegan to fade. The windows too, short, low windows, too short, Johnnythought, for so tall a room, began letting in light about the shades, avery little light, but light all the same.
Breaking the spell that had settled upon his drowsy senses, Johnny sprangto his feet, threw off his clothes, dragged on his sleeping garments,then crept beneath the covers of a most comfortable bed.
"Light is fading," he murmured. He recalled the lights on the stage ofthe opera house. They had not blinked on and off. They faded like thecoming of darkness on the broad prairies. "Sort of nice, I think," hemurmured sleepily. "More natural. Like--like--"
Well, after all, what did it matter what it was like. He had fallenasleep.
How long we have slept we are seldom able to tell. At times an hour seemsa whole night, at others four hours is but a dozen ticks of the clock.Johnny slept. He awoke. And at once his senses were conscious of somechange going on in his room. He was seized with a foreboding of impendingcatastrophe.
At first he was at a complete loss to know what this change was. Therewas the room. The low windows still admitted streaks of light. Thechairs, his bed, the very low chest of drawers were in their accustomedplaces.
"And yet--" He ran a hand across his eyes as if to clear his vision. Andthen like a flash it came to him. That exceedingly tall room was not sotall now--or was it?
"Impossible! How absurd!" He sat up, determined to waken himself from abad dream.
But the thing was no dream. The ceiling _was_ lower, fully five feetlower. And--horror of horrors!--it was still moving downward, lower,lower, still lower.
There was not the slightest sound, yet the boy seemed to feel the breathof moving air on his face.
Too astonished and frightened to move, he sat there while that ceilingmarched down over the pattern of a quite futuristic wall-paper.
When at last questions formed themselves in his fear-frozen brain theywere, "How far will it come? Will the posts of my bed arrest it? If thebed crashes under the weight, what then?"
While he was revolving these questions in his mind and wondering in avague sort of way what chance he had of escaping from one of those thirdstory windows, he noted with a start that the ceiling had ceased moving.It was as if its desire to hide great stretches of wall paper had, forthe time at least, been satisfied.
The ceiling having settled nine feet or more, Johnny found himself inquite a normal bed chamber. Windows were the proper height, picturescorrectly hung and furniture matching it all very well.
He settled back on his bed. It had been a long day. He would just liethere and keep a wary eye on that playful ceiling.
