Mr Hawkins Humorous Adventures | Page 2

dashed to the ground and kicked into pulp. What does he do?
Simply pulls this lever--thus! The animal can't budge!"
An uncanny clankety-clankety-clank accompanied his words, and the
rods dropped suddenly. In their descent they somehow managed to
gather two steel cuffs apiece.
When they ceased dropping, Maud S. had a steel bar down the back of
each leg, with a cuff above and a cuff below the knee. Hawkins was
quite right-- so far as I could see; Maud was anchored until some
well-disposed person brought a hack-saw and cut off her shackles.
"You see how it acts when she is standing still?" chuckled the inventor,
replacing the rods. "Just keep your eyes open and note the suddenness
with which she stops running."
"Hawkins," I cried, despairingly, as he led the animal up the road,
"don't go to all that trouble on my account. I can see perfectly that the
thing is a success. Don't try it again."

"My dear Griggs," said Hawkins, coldly, "this trial trip is for my own
personal satisfaction, not yours. To tell the truth, I had no idea that you
or any one else would be here to witness my triumph."
He went perhaps three or four hundred feet up the road; then he turned
Maud's nose homeward and clambered to her back.
As I waited behind the hedge, I grieved for the old mare. Hawkins
evidently intended urging her into something more rapid than the walk
she had used for so many years, and I feared that at her advanced age
the excitement might prove injurious.
But Maud broke into such a sedate canter when Hawkins had thumped
her ribs a few times with his heels, and her kindly old face seemed to
wear such a gentle expression as she approached, that I breathed easier.
"Now, Griggs!" cried Hawkins, coming abreast. "Watch--now!"
He thrust one hand behind, grasped the lever, and gave it a tug. The
little rods remained in the air.
A puzzled expression flitted over Hawkins' face, and as he cantered by
he appeared to tug a trifle harder.
This time something happened.
I heard a whir like the echo of a sawmill, and saw several yards of steel
spring shoot out of the inwards of the machine. I heard a sort of frantic
shriek from Maud S. I saw a sudden cloud of pebbles and dust in the
road, such as I should imagine would be kicked up by an exploding
shell--and that was all.
Hawkins, Maud, and the infernal machine were making for the county
town with none of the grace, but nearly all the speed, of a shooting star.
For a few seconds I stood dazed.
Then it occurred to me that Hawkins' wife would later wish to know
what his dying words had been, and I went into the auto with a flying

leap, sent it about in its own length, almost jumped the hedge, and thus
started upon a race whose memory will haunt me when greater things
have faded into the forgotten past.
My runabout, while hardly a racer, is supposed to have some pretty
speedy machinery stored away in it, but the engine had a big
undertaking in trying to overhaul that old mare.
It was painfully apparent that something--possibly righteous
indignation at being the victim of one of Hawkins' experiments--had
roused a latent devil within Maud S. Her heels were viciously threshing
up the dirt at the foot of the hill before I began my blood-curdling coast
at the top.
How under the sun anything could go faster than did that automobile is
beyond my conception; yet when I reached the level ground again and
breathed a little prayer of thanks that an all-wise Providence had spared
my life on the hill, Hawkins seemed still to have the same lead.
That he was traveling like a hurricane was evidenced by the wake of
fear-maddened chickens and barking dogs that were just recovering
their senses when I came upon them.
I put my lever back to the last notch.
Heavens, how that auto went! It rocked from one side of the road to the
other. It bounded over great stones and tried to veer into ditches, with
the express purpose of hurling me to destruction.
It snorted and puffed and rattled and skidded; but above all, it went!
There is no use attempting a record of my impressions during that first
half mile--in fact, I am not aware that I had any. 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