Mr Hawkins Humorous Adventures | Page 5

a personally conducted tour to a quiet little grave, and I have no wish to learn the itinerary beforehand.
Now, bitter experience has taught me that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom from complicity with the mechanical contrivances of Hawkins, and I should have been suspicious. Yet when Hawkins appeared Sunday morning and asked me to go for a little jaunt up the Hudson in his launch, I accepted with guileless good faith.
His launch was--perhaps it is still--the neatest of neat little pleasure boats, and when we left the house I anticipated several hours of keen enjoyment.
Crossing Riverside Drive, it struck me that Hawkins was hurrying, but the balmy air, the sunshine, and the beautiful sweep of the river filled my mind with infinite peace, and it was not until we had descended to the little dock that I smelled anything suggestive of rat.
Hawkins climbed into the launch, and I smiled benignly on him as I handed down the lunch and our overcoats. I had just finished passing them over when I stopped smiling so suddenly that it jarred my facial muscles.
"Where has the engine gone?" I demanded.
"That engine, Griggs," responded Hawkins, pleasantly, "has gone where all other steam engines will go within the next two years--into the scrap heap."
"Which very cheerful prophecy means----"
"It means, my dear boy, that before you stands the first full-sized working model of the Hawkins A. P. motor, patent applied for!"
The inventor flicked off a waterproof cover and exposed to view in the stern of the launch what looked like an inverted wash-boiler. At first glance it appeared to be merely a dome of heavy steel, bolted to a massive bed-plate, but I didn't spend much time examining the thing.
"There, Griggs," began Hawkins, triumphantly, "in that small----"
"Hawkins," I cried, desperately, "you get out of that boat! Get out of it, I say! Come home with me at once. I'm not going to be mixed up in any more of your wretched trial-trips. Come on, or I'll drag you out!"
Hawkins eyed me coldly for a minute, admonished me not to be an ass, and went on untying the launch.
He is stronger and heavier than I. Frankly, had I meditated such a course seriously, I couldn't have hoisted him out of his boat.
If I had ever studied medicine, I suppose I should have known how to stun Hawkins from above without killing him, but I have never even seen the inside of a hospital.
Again, could I have conjured up any plausible charge, I might have called a policeman and requested him to incarcerate Hawkins; at the moment, however, I was a bit too flustered for such refined strategy.
Obviously, I couldn't prevent Hawkins testing his motor, but my heart quaked at the idea of accompanying him.
On the other hand, it quaked quite as much before the prospect of returning to his wife and admitting that I had allowed Hawkins to sail away alone with his accursed motor.
If I went with him, a relatively easy death by drowning was about the best I could expect. If I didn't, his wife----
I stepped down into the launch.
"Coming, are you?" observed Hawkins. "Quite the sensible thing to do, Griggs. You'll never regret it."
"God knows, I hope not," I sighed.
"Now, in the first place, I may as well call your attention again to the motor. The A. P. stands for 'almost perpetual'--good name, isn't it? You don't know much about chemistry, Griggs, or I could make the whole proposition clear to you."
"The great point about my motor, however, is that she's run by a fluid somewhat similar to gasolene--another of the distillation products of petroleum, in fact--which, having been exploded, passes into my new and absolutely unique catalytic condensers, where it is returned to its original molecular structure and run back into the reservoir."
"Hence," finished Hawkins, dramatically, "the fuel retains its chemical integrity indefinitely, and, as it circulates automatically through the motor, the little engine will run for months at a time without a particle of attention. Is that quite clear?"
"Perfectly," I lied.
"All right. Now I'll show you how she starts," smiled the inventor, opening with a key a little door in the wash-boiler and lighting a match.
"Careful, Hawkins, careful," I ventured, backing toward the cabin.
"My dear fellow," he sneered, "can you not grasp that in an engine of this construction, there is absolutely no danger of any kind of explo----"
Just then a heavy report issued from the wash-boiler. A sheet of flame seemed to flash from the little opening and precipitate Hawkins into my arms.
At any rate, he landed there with a violent shock, and I clutched him tightly, and tried to steady the launch.
"Leggo! Leggo!" he screamed. "Let me go, you idiot! It always does that! It's working now."
He was right. The launch was churning up a peculiarly serpentine wake, and