Mr Hawkins Humorous Adventures | Page 4

overturned toy horse.
Hawkins shot off into space, and at the moment I didn't care greatly where he landed. I was vaguely conscious that he collided head-on with the row of milk-cans, but my main anxiety was to shut off my power, set the brake, point the auto into the ditch, and jump.
And I did it all in about one second.
After the jump, my recollection grows hazy. I know that one of my feet landed in an open milk-can, and that I grabbed wildly at several others. Then the cans and I toppled headlong over the embankment and went down, down, down, while, fainter and fainter, I could hear something like:
"Whoa! Whoa! Gol darn ye! Ow! Stop that hoss! Bang! Rattle! Rattle! Bang! Whoa! Stop, can't ye?"
Then a peculiarly unyielding milk-can landed on my head and I seemed to float away.
I have reason to believe that I sat up about two minutes later. The crash was over and peace had settled once more upon the face of nature.
From far away came the sound of galloping hoofs, belonging, no doubt, to some of the horses who had participated in the late excitement.
The embankment was strewn with men and milk-cans, chiefly the latter. No one seemed to be wholly dead, although one or two looked pretty near it.
A few feet away, Burkett, the constable, was having a convulsion in his vain endeavour to extricate his cranium from a milk-can. The sounds that issued from that can made me blush.
Jackson was sitting up and staring dully at the river, while Dr. Brotherton, with his frock-coat split to the collar, was fishing fragments of his medicine case out of another can.
Others of the erstwhile procession were distributed about the embankment in various conditions, but, as I have said, nobody seemed to have parted company with the vital spark.
Hawkins alone was invisible, and as I struggled to my feet this fact puzzled me considerably.
A pile of milk-cans balanced on the river's edge, and on the chance of finding the inventor's remains, I tipped them into the stream. Underneath, stretched on the cold, unsympathetic ground, his feet dabbling idly in the water, his clothes in a hundred shreds, a great lump on his brow, was Hawkins, stunned and bleeding!
As I turned to summon Brotherton, Hawkins opened his eyes.
I am not one to cherish a grudge. I felt that Hawkins' invention had been its own terrible punishment. So I helped him to his feet as gently as possible, and waited for apologetic utterances.
"You see, Griggs," began Hawkins, uncertainly--"you see, the--the ratchet on the big wheel--stuck. I'll put a new--a new ratchet there, and oil-- lots of oil--on the--the----"
"That's enough, Hawkins," I said.
"Come home."
"Yes, but don't you see," he groaned, holding fast to his battered skull as I helped him back to the road, "if I get that one little point perfected--it--it will revol----"
"Let it!" I snapped. "Sit here until I see what's left of my automobile."
Ten minutes later, Patrick having appeared to take charge of Maud S., Hawkins and I were making our homeward way in the runabout, which had mercifully been spared.
Something in my face must have forbidden conversation, for Hawkins wrapped the soiled fragments of his raiment about him in offended dignity, and was silent on the subject of horse-brake.
Nor have I ever heard of the thing since. Possibly Mrs. Hawkins succeeded in demonstrating the fallacy of the whole horse-brake theory; in fact, from the expression on her face when we reached the house, I am inclined to think that she did.
Mrs. Hawkins can be strong-minded on occasion, and her tongue is in no way inadequate to the needs of her mind. At any rate, a friend of mine in the patent office, whom I asked about the matter some time ago, tells, me that the Hawkins Horse-brake has never been patented, so that I presume the invention is in its grave. As a public spirited citizen, I venture to add that this is a blessing.

CHAPTER II.
My wife is averse to widowhood. Lately she exacted my solemn pledge not to assist Hawkins with any more of his diabolical inventions.
For a similar reason, his own good lady drew me aside a few evenings since, and insisted upon my promising to use every means, physical force included, which might prevent her "Herbert" from experimenting further with his motor.
Hawkins hadn't favored me with any confidences about the motor, and at the first opportunity I indicated with brutal directness that none was desired.
Hawkins inquired with frigid asperity as to my meaning; but the very iciness of his manner satisfied me that he understood perfectly, and, believing that he was sufficiently offended to keep entirely to himself all details of his machine--whatever it might be--I breathed more easily.
Some of these days one of Hawkins' inventions is going to take him on