Mr. Hawkins

“ What is it, Hawkins? Oh, Mr. Hawkins, wherever did it come from? Why, it ran out of those dots—I saw it! What is it?” echoed from different parts of the room.
“It's only my sprinkler—my fire-extinguisher,” Hawkins explained. “It went off by accident, you see. There's nothing in it to hurt you. It's perfectly neutral. It can't bite—that's imagination.”
“But it does!” cried Mrs. Gordon. “It stings like acid. It actually seems to be eating my skin!”
“Bite! I should say it did!” growled Mr. Blodgett. “It's chewing my hands off—I believe it's carbolic acid. I do—I'll swear I do. ”

“ For the rest of the mechanism, it was all concealed. I rightly surmised the monstrosity to be the Gasowashine.
The fly-wheels were revolving slowly, and this seemed to irritate Hawkins.
“Good-evening, Mr. Macdougal,” he said to a puzzled looking gentleman, who stood eying the affair. “Mr. Griggs, Mr. Macdougal, the manager. So some one started it, did he?”
“One of the 'buses happened to touch it, and it started itself,” replied the manager, gazing on the contrivance. “It's quite safe to have about, is it not, Mr. Hawkins?”
“Safe? Certainly it is safe.” ”

“ Francie accepted her cousin’s displeasure philosophically, only betraying her sense of the situation by the expressive eye which she turned towards her companion in disgrace over the rim of her tea-cup. But Mr. Hawkins rose to the occasion. He gulped his tepid and bitter cup of tea with every appearance of enjoyment, and having arranged his small moustache with a silk handkerchief, addressed himself undauntedly to Miss Mullen. ”

“ I am quite certain that you understand perfectly—but you must think for yourself! Success, Jenkins, comes slowly by individual thought. You know the ship as well as I do. Direct her toward the earth, and do it carefully.” He cleared his throat. “Luncheon, Griggs!”
“But, Mr. Hawkins, how can we get down when this cylinder's overcharged with gas and we're going higher every minute, and—”
“My dear boy,” said Hawkins, with a grin that was meant to be playful, and that actually looked like the dying smile of a consumptive, “think!” ”

“ Hawkins, sir,” interrupted Hawkins' butler at the door.
“Well, William?”
“Mrs. Hawkins, sir, she says as how your presence is desired down-stairs.”
“Oh, all right,” said the inventor wearily. “I'll be down directly.”
“No rest for the wicked,” he commented to me. “Come on, Griggs, we'll have to dance.”
The festivity was in full swing when we descended.
Mrs. Hawkins came over to us and remarked in low tones to her spouse:
“Now just try to make yourself agreeable, Herbert. It's not nice for you to steal away and smoke.”
“I'm not smoking.”
“Mr. Griggs is.” ”

“ Hawkins; "and you don't look like a hossey gent either, guv'nor."
"I am not a 'horsey gent.' I don't want the 'Buffalo' for myself. I want him for a hunting-friend. If you can get me the brute a dead bargain, say for twenty pounds, and can get a week's holiday to bring him down to my friend's place in the country, I'll give you a five-pound note for your trouble."
The eyes of Mr. Hawkins glittered with the greed of gold as Victor Carrington said this ”

“ Mr. Hawkins drove at full pace out of the barrack gates before he replied, “It’s all very fine for you to talk as if you were a thousand, Snipey, but, by George! we’re all getting on a bit.” His ingenuous brow clouded under the peak of his cap, and his thoughts reverted to the letter that he had thrust into the sachet. “I’ve been pretty young at times, I admit, but that’s the sort of thing that makes you a lot older afterwards.”
“Good thing, too,” put in Cursiter unsympathetically. ”

“ Only be careful and don’t sprain your head! Thinking’s dangerous when you’re not used to it. And if you do any more talking—which I certainly don’t advise—be careful of the words you use, Mr. Hawkins. I’m not a liar or a thief. Don’t call me either one.”
James Blaine Hawkins spluttered and swore and argued one-sidedly. Gary leaned against the cabin with his arms folded negligently and listened with supreme indifference if one were to believe his manner.
“Rave on,” he said indulgently. “Get it all out of your system—and then crank your little Ford and iris out of this scene, will you? ”

“ You've made mischief enough with your inventions, but you have never, thank goodness, dabbled in explosives.”
“If I wanted to tell you what I know about explosives, and what I could do——” declaimed Hawkins.
“Don't tell us, Mr. Hawkins,” laughed my wife. “A sort of superstitious dread comes over me at the notion.”
“Mrs. Griggs!” exclaimed Hawkins, eying my wife with a glare which in any other man would have earned him the best licking I could give him—but which, like many other things, had to be excused in Hawkins.
“Herbert!” said his wife, authoritatively. “Be still. ”

“ But after a time I drew nearer to Hawkins, and at last came within thirty feet of the galloping Maud.
Hawkins' face was white and set, he bounced painfully up and down, risking his neck at every bounce, but one hand kept a death-like grip on the lever of the horse-brake.
“Jump!” I screamed. “Throw yourself off!”
Hawkins regarded me with much the expression the early Christians must have worn when conducted into the arena.
“No,” he shouted. “It's”—bump—“it's all right. It'll”—bump—“work in a minute.”
“No, it won't! Jump, for Heaven's sake, jump!” ”

“ Say, see any Chinks in the car?"
"Didn't see anything! The car turned off before we could get close enough to see in it."
"Too bad we couldn't work it, boys," Hawkins ruefully said. "We've still got a chance to nab them, though. They can't get far over this ground with a car."
"They can lead us a merry chase," Dick asserted. "Wonder what time it is?"
"One o'clock," Bud suggested. "Not much more, anyway. Think they came over this way, Mr. Hawkins?"
"Yes—I do. Know where we are?"
"Comin' to the water hole, I think," answered Yellin' Kid. ”

“ Some resistless force lifted me from the floor and propelled me toward the half shattered door. Dimly I noted that the same thing had happened to Hawkins. For the tiniest fraction of a second he seemed to be floating horizontally in the air. Then I felt my head collide with wood; the door parted, and I shot through the opening.
I saw the hallway before me; I remember observing with vague wonder that the gas-light went out just as it caught my eye. And then an awful flash blinded me, a roar of ten thousand cannon seemed to split my skull—and that was all. ”

“ What under the sun did you let off your infernal contrivance for?”
“Oh, I just did it to spite you, papa,” said Hawkins, with weary sarcasm.
“By George, sir, I believe you did!” snapped the old gentleman. “It's like you! Look at my coat, sir! Look at——”
I was edging away when Mrs. Hawkins entered. She was clad in somber black now, and her cheeks flamed scarlet with mortification.
“Well!” she exclaimed.
“Well, my dear?” said Hawkins, bracing himself.
“A pretty mess you've made of our house-warming, haven't you? You and your idiotic fire-extinguisher!” ”

“ That's a little new Delsarte stunt I do every day about this time! It keeps the shoulder muscles in good condition, you know, and stimulates the liver! Where the dickens did you get the idea that I fell?”
“Why—Mr. Hawkins! There wasn't any offense intended, I assure you! I merely came to awsk at what hour we dine, you know. Mrs. Walford-Ebbington is better now and a bit hungry, as it were. What's the hour, old chap?” ”

“ The inventor snatched it impolitely and turned his back, while the youth gazed after him for a moment and then returned to the office.
“Set of confounded idiots!” Hawkins remarked wrathfully.
Then, ere I could disappear, he spied me.
“Aha, Griggs, you here?”
“No, I'm not,” I said flatly. “If there's any trouble brewing, Hawkins, consider me back in New York. What has excited you?”
“Excited me? Those fool railroad officials are enough to drive a man to the asylum. ”

“ Hawkins looked gratefully at her, and then uncertainly at Francie.
“He’s welcome to come if he likes,” said Francie frigidly, thinking with a mixture of alarm and satisfaction of what Roddy would say if he heard of it.
Hawkins waited for no further invitation, and got into the waggonette. A trait of character as old as humanity was at this time asserting itself, with singular freshness and force, in the bosom of Mr. Gerald Hawkins. He had lightly taken Francie’s heart in his hand, and as lightly thrown it away, without plot or premeditation ”

“ I took the latter alternative, threw myself upon the ladder, and clung there, gasping with astonishment at the suddenness of the thing.
“Well, Hawkins?” I said, getting breath as my head sank below the level of the beautiful earth.
“Well, Griggs,” said the inventor defiantly, from the second rung below, “the gear must have slipped—that's all.”
“Isn't it lucky that this is a tiled well?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why,” I said, “a tiled well is absolutely safe, you see. Nothing can happen in a tiled well, Hawkins.” ”

“ The huge wing was precisely in line to deal my unoffending cranium a terrific whack, which would probably stun me, and certainly brush me from my perch.
“There's a big wind coming!” I cried. “Look at those trees.”
“By Jimminy! You're right!” gasped the inventor, recklessly hurling himself upon the ladder. “Quick, Griggs. Come down after me. Quick!”
When one of Hawkins' inventions gets you in its toils, you have to make rapid decisions as to the manner of death you would prefer. In the twinkling of an eye, I decided to cast my fate with Hawkins on the ladder. ”

“ Hawkins' countenance fell somewhat, but there was no time for a reply. The coal-scuttle of the Crano-Scale was hovering above us, evidently selecting a spot for its operations.
“Here! We're right under it!” Hawkins shouted. “This way, Griggs! Quick! Lord! It's coming down—it'll hit you! Quick!”
And I dived toward Hawkins as he was struggling for a foothold, and then——
A line of asterisks is the only way of putting into print my state of mind—or absence of any state of mind—for the ensuing quarter of an hour. ”

“ Hawkins strode to the rear of the yard without turning. About us on every side were high wooden walls, the storage bins of the company.
Up the side of one wall ran a ladder, and Hawkins commenced the perpendicular ascent with the same matter-of-fact air that one would wear in walking up-stairs.
“What are you doing that for? Exercise?” I called, when he paused some twenty-five feet in the air.
“If you wish to see the Crano-Scale at work, follow me. If not, stay where you are,” replied Hawkins. ”

“ The Hawkins Auto-aero-mobile was very delicately balanced now on four slim wires, and the balloon was collapsing with heart-rending rapidity. From below sounds of excitement were audible, here and there a groan and now a scream of horror, as some new-comer realized our position.
“Hawkins,” I said, solemnly, “why don't you make a vow right now that if we ever get out of this alive——”
Ping! went the third wire. The auto swayed gently for a moment.
“You'll never invent another thing as long as you live?”
“Griggs,” said Hawkins, in trembling tones, “I almost believe that you are right. ”

“ The cook seemed to be feeling for a new grip.
“Here! What are you doing?” cried the inventor. “Don't touch any of those handles.”
“It is that I seek a place for ze hand,” murmured the cook apologetically.
“Well, find it and let her down. Got your grip?”
“Aha! I have eet!” announced the Frenchman, clutching one of the brass knobs.
“All right. Down!”
Down went the Gasowashine. And a very small fraction of one second later things began to happen.
Each of Hawkins' inventions possesses a latent devil. ”

“ I will say it for Hawkins that he managed to stop the affair at Newark in very commendable fashion. It seems so remarkable that one of his contrivances should have exhibited that much amenity to control that it is worthy of note.
Some of the passengers who alighted to be sure, exhibited signs of hard usage. There were visible bruises in several cases, due, presumably, to the slightly startling suddenness with which our trip began.
But Hawkins was blind to anything of that sort.
“Now, wasn't that fine?” he said proudly.
“Well—we're here—and alive,” was about all I could say. ”

“ He hasn't mixed as much with society as the rest of us,” he added, with an elaborate Chesterfieldian ease of manner; “but he means well.” Meanwhile a few other sympathetic tunnelmen were impressing upon Mr. Hawkins the necessity of the greatest attention to the invalid. “It won't do, Hawkins,” they explained, “to let that there gal go back to San Francisco and say, that, when she was sick and alone, the only man in Five Forks under whose roof she had rested, and at whose table she had sat” (this was considered a natural but pardonable exaggeration of rhetoric) “ever threw off on her ”

“ The Gasowashine and the cook were traveling across the kitchen together. The Frenchman, with remarkable presence of mind, was behind the machine and dragging back with all his might; but as well could he have hauled to a standstill the locomotive of the Empire State Express.
The Gasowashine, puffing heavily as any racing auto, had plans of its own and was executing them to the accompaniment of a simply appalling rattle of crockery.
“Don't let go! Don't let go!” cried Hawkins. “Keep hold, my man!”
“I do! I do! Mais, mon Dieu!” called the Frenchman jerkily. ”