WILLIAM'S LIFT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 11, 13 January 1940, Page 6

WILLIAM'S LIFT.

LOYALTY UNSHAKEN. . A DREAM COMES TRUE. THE DOORS THAT RATTLE. lMie dream of William, who could claim to be the youngest lift-driver in Auckland—if lie happened to think of | it—is about to come true. His crafcy; lift is to have new doors. William hasn't had the job long, but it would kill him to lose his lift. While he was at school he often thought of driving a lift. On Saturday mornings his mother sometimes took him to the c-ity. William rode-in every lift lie could. On one memorable occasion he went in the one at the Power Board. The mail had only to touch a button and the doors opened smoothly of their own accord, then slid into their notch with a sharp click That was power. It was not long afterwards that William got his chance. The lift was not as lifts go, nor was the building a grand one nor the traflic great. It was just a lift that did its job and managed to get by the inspector. ■While waiting for customers William djd mysterious tilings in the • basement. Nobody appeared to know what went oh there, and William never spoke. . It. was a . s ) of his I,ife on which people never questioned him. One just pushed the bell, waited)-pushed the bell again, and lip bobbed William. • Secretly, William worried about these delays. He invariably looked plaintively at' his passengers. and said, "It ,is the doors!" as if that explained 1 everything. j *, Regular Customers got to like. William. 1 They . did little things fOi* hint. Some-, tithes they pressed the button marked "Sccoiid Floor." Sometimes , they even tried to close tho doors. But? usually William liked to perform these simple offices himself. He liad'a way with the < doors, and coaxed their cumbersome steel with understanding. But they were worrying him. lie didn't say much at first; merely smiled his sad smile and wagged, his he,ad with its unruly shock of hair. Towalds the end of last year lie was growing, embittered, though still he didn't like to liear pebple talking openly about hi 6 lift or the noise the doors mads when lie slammed them shut. He was loyal to liis«~lift* Then, 011 a wet morning before Christmas, William bobbed up from the. basement, his face radiant. Thei - e \Vere only two passengers waiting: a newspaperman and a soldier who had be>3ii thei'e often before he joined the Army. William slammed the doors with a rattle v arid turned to the soldier. He didn't like newspapermen much, for all the jmwsiiapei'ineK who.ireed his lift said teri'ibie things about it. So it was the soldier who first heard the worldshntterillg news. . : " .' "I'lh ni& new doors," said William. Tlieli he turned his face ,t'o the \Valls of the lift'well as they slid past, to hide his emotion; for it was his happiest daVl And so it caine to pass. The next day the lift \Vas laid tip, and workmen took away the old doors that rattled and that made William's life a misery. And they brought drills to attack the concrete floors and made cunning new •grooves for the walnut door 6 that were to slide silently, along them. So was tile heart of • William iiiade glad a& he laboured in his basement, for the clamour of the hammers.arid the •electric drills . was v music •to his loyal sdill. : . '